I want to become a Jesus person.

Last fall, we spent several months looking at the things Jesus people practice: forgiveness, sexual integrity, honesty, and generosity, to name a few.

We began that whole journey of looking at the specifics by reminding ourselves of Paul’s words in Philippians 2; that we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

We began the journey of looking at what Jesus people do by reminding ourselves that to truly follow Jesus means to have God work within us. The message of good news that God brings through Jesus is that we can be changed by God! It isn’t so much about what we accomplish, but about what God has done and is doing in us.

I think it was important for us to paint a specific picture of what it looks like to follow Jesus. We need the goals of generosity and sexual integrity and forgiveness put before us regularly in practical ways.

And right alongside that picture of where we are going, we also must continue to remind ourselves that it is God and only God who makes a difference in how we live.

Seven days into our New Year’s resolution, I want to remind us that there is more than willpower in the world…there is the power of God’s Holy Spirit available to each of us, to help shape us and conform us to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ. There is the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us into Jesus people.

How do we live into that power?

How do we really experience God? What are the steps? That’s what we want to explore together over the next few weeks.

How do we become a Jesus person, changed by the power of God’s Holy Spirit? I’m going to suggest an unbelievably simple answer to that question: If we want to be Jesus people, then we should do what Jesus did.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at what the bible tells us that Jesus did to prepare himself for ministry. Jesus did some really practical things, things that you and I can do, to enable him to know what God’s plan was for his life and to live and walk and breathe in the power of God’s Spirit.

What Jesus did was put himself in a place where God could speak to him and could change him. And if the perfect Son of God had to make an effort to let God equip and empower him, well, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that you and I need to do that, too.

We become Jesus people by doing what Jesus did.

Today, we’re looking at Jesus’ baptism, where the Holy Spirit visibly came upon Jesus, giving God’s approval and power to start his public ministry.

In coming weeks, we’ll look at how Jesus knew what he believed, how he fasted, how he spent time with broken people, and how he focused on the essentials. Each of these actions that Jesus did are things we can do: intentional, active, tangible ways we place ourselves in a position for God to do in us what only God can do. These are actions that allow us to be acted on, choices that allow us to be changed.

We become Jesus people by doing what Jesus did.

So why did Jesus get baptized?

There’s a whole other message here about what we as Friends believe about baptism, but that is not what I’m going to address today. If you have questions about that, I’d encourage you to take our exploring Friends or exploring membership classes.

What I’m intrigued by is what John says to Jesus in the book of Matthew: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

That’s John’s polite way of saying, “Why in the world are you doing this?!? You don’t need anything from us!”

And in one sense, I suppose that is true. Jesus didn’t need anything from John, nor does he need anything from us. He’s got it all.

John’s message that led people to be immersed in the Jordan River was simple: “You need to repent of the things you’ve done wrong, and begin a new life.”

John, along with countless people in the history of the church down to today, don’t understand why Jesus, the perfect Son of God, would need to come and identify with a practice that clearly was admitting a need for change, a need for forgiveness of wrong actions.

The bible teaches, and John understood, that Jesus was different from us. He was the only one never to have sinned, never to have disobeyed God. He was the only person in the history of the world to NOT need to repent of past deeds and ask God for forgiveness and the power to live differently.

In my studying this week, the best answer most people today can come up with for why Jesus chose to be baptized, is this: Jesus did this to identify completely with his people, with people who so desperately needed changing and saving. He chose to identify with us: with our need for change, healing, and forgiveness.

This strikes me as characteristic of Jesus: an immense humility, a willingness to connect with people and submit to God.

Are we willing to identify with people in need, and submit to God?

Here comes the challenging word I feel led to say this morning to us as a body at Newberg Friends. One of the hard things about speaking to a group like this is knowing that each individual is unique, and that what I say will not apply to everyone. But I feel the need to share these wonderings:

I wonder if we at Newberg Friends struggle with a spiritual pride that doesn’t let us acknowledge our deep need for God.

I wonder if we have become so used to speaking about God and knowing things about God, that we are too fearful to admit we need a fresh touch of God’s power and forgiveness.

I wonder if we have separated ourselves so much from people out there who don’t know God, that we would be unable to do what Jesus did. He who was without sin, humbled himself, identified with people who needed healing and forgiveness, by intentionally seeking out a public action of submission and need.

Jesus had it all, was without sin, and needed absolutely nothing.

Yet this act of obedience and submission and humility led to a new empowering, to a deeper identity, to a sign of God’s favor as the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove.

Are we willing to acknowledge our need for God? Or must we put up the front that says, “I’m ok, I have it together”?

Almost unanimously, those who study this part of the book of Matthew see great significance in the coming of the Holy Spirit on Jesus.

This event is NOT what made Jesus the Son of God. From his conception in Mary’s womb, he was God in the flesh. For millennia, the church has agreed that thinking it was at this moment of his baptism that he became the Messiah is the heresy of adoptionism.

Having already been God in the flesh, Jesus’ identification with his people and his submission to John and to God leads to a new empowering, a new mark, a fresh experience of the Holy Spirit.

This tells me that any one of us–whether we’ve ignored God our whole life or have been following Jesus since childhood–any one of us is ready for and could benefit from a fresh experience of the Holy Spirit.

In each of the gospels, this event marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. What Jesus did, the healings and the teaching and the death and the resurrection, it all began here, with a fresh experience of the Holy Spirit.

This is my longing, for continued fresh experiences of God’s Holy Spirit!

And Jesus shows me that outpourings of God’s Spirit come not when I show the world how good I am, but when I identify with my need for God, and when I submit in humility and obedience to God.

Are you longing for your life to be different? Do you want increasing measures of forgiveness and integrity and generosity to be demonstrated in your life? Do you need forgiveness of past wrongs, healing of past hurts? Are you tired of the same broken and dysfunctional patterns that repeat themselves in your life over and over again?

All of that shows a longing for the power of God’s Holy Spirit!

What Friends believe, and what I believe, is that we can and we must be immersed in God’s Holy Spirit anywhere and everywhere. The action of God’s Holy Spirit anointing us and resting on us is not dependent upon immersion in water.

Part of why I believe that is what Paul says in Acts 19. He met people who had been baptized in water, who knew John’s baptism, but didn’t know the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Paul explained the difference, and then when he prayed and laid hands on them, they were changed by the Holy Spirit right then and there.

That tells me the power of God is always available. That tells me we can’t control it. That tells me that God is longing to pour himself out upon us.

If there was anyone who could have said, “I’ve arrived”, it was Jesus.

Yet even Jesus did not. He identified with us, with our needs, with our vulnerability, and he admitted it in a public fashion.

If anyone could have “done it on his own power”, if anyone could have pulled it off with will power alone, it was Jesus.

Yet even Jesus did not. He submitted himself and received a fresh experience of God that empowered him for his mission.

What is your need before God? How are you making yourself available to experience a fresh touch of God’s Holy Spirit?

I don’t pretend to have this all figured out. I believe with all my heart that right here, today, God could come in power. I also remember 7 years ago in my van, driving through the gorge, calling out to God over and over again for a fresh touch of his power. I remember 4 years ago praying in my office fervently for a new experience of God’s Holy Spirit.

In those cases and in others, I didn’t have a “dove” kind of experience. It didn’t seem like anything “happened”. But those were part of an increased longing for God on my part, part of a string of experiences where I kept acknowledging to myself and to God that I needed him desperately.

But over the last year and a half, maybe the last two years, I have had several “dove” kind of experiences. Some of them have come as I’ve prayed and specifically asked God to move in me, to change me. And some have come completely unexpectedly, as others have prayed for me.

All we can do is bring our need to God. All we can do is ask for God to change us, for his Holy Spirit to come.

We’re going to sing together about our longing for more of Jesus.

We’re going to sing out our trust in God to lead us.

Will you allow that to prepare you for entering God’s presence in open worship? Will you let Jesus’ example of humility and our singing together to lead you to a place where you can admit your need to God?

Will you submit yourself to God, and ask for his power to come? Will you be willing in our time of worship to let God’s Holy Spirit fill you in a fresh way, and be obedient to let that be expressed however God leads? Will you pray for and with the people around you, pray for God to touch us individually and as a community, touch us with the Holy Spirit’s power so that we can become Jesus people?