The Beginning
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Last week we began a series on the Book of Matthew. My message pointed to Jesus as the Messiah. It is important that we understand Jesus as being the Messiah.
Today we will be reading Matthew chapter 3. This is what starts the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. About 20 years have past since we last heard about Jesus.
42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom.
This is the last story we know about Jesus until His adult ministry starts. When Jesus begins his adult ministry he is about 30 years old.
Think about something new for a moment. It’s exciting when you get something new, right? Christmas happened less than a month ago. Some of you are still enjoying your new things that you received during Christmas. That newness hasn’t wore off yet. You’re still showing your friends the new items you received. If there was something you didn’t like you probably have already taken it back to the store. The truth is we all like something new.
We like new beginnings. Do you remember when you first started dating your spouse? Do you remember when you got your new car? Do you remember when you bought your house?
Kelly and I have had the privilege of building two new homes. Our current home, I remember building and the anticipation of when we would get to move in. We were so excited and then moving day came. We had friends and family help us move. It was exciting. We have now lived in that house almost 9 years. God has blessed us. We enjoy our home and the blessings that those beginnings brought to us almost 9 years ago.
The beginning of Jesus’ ministry was the beginning of something special. There was something brewing and it started with a man that wasn’t Jesus. His name was John the Baptist and he actually was a distant cousin of Jesus. Go with me to chapter 3 of Matthew.
1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea
2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ”
4 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.
5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan.
6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
John the Baptist was a strange man. He was someone that liked to stir things up. The religious leaders had been cruising along thinking all their religious stuff was the way they should be until this man John came stirring things up.
Matthew is quick to point out that John was the one prophesied about in Isaiah.
3 A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair. He ate honey and locusts. That’s a new diet trend we can start. The John the Baptist diet. All you can eat buffet of locust and honey. Grab you some locust from the fields and drizzle some honey on it.
And John’s message was simple, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” And people were flocking to his message they were coming and repenting of their sins and John was baptizing them in the Jordan River. That is how he gets the name John the Baptist.
Word is spreading around about this John the Baptist guy. It gets back to the religious leaders and they decide to come check it out and apparently this sets off John and he tells them how it is. Look at verse 7.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
John sets the religious leaders straight. He basically lets them know, don’t think that because you are religious leaders that you are exempt from this. He tells them just because they come from Abraham doesn’t mean a thing. What matters is there life. He tells this baptising thing isn’t for funnsies either. I like how the message puts verse 11.
11 “I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama—compared to him I’m a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.
And all this happens before Jesus comes on the scene. John is setting everything up. He is getting everyone ready for the man that is going to change the world. He is preparing the way for a man that John says, “whose sandals, I am not worthy to carry.”
John knew that the Messiah would be coming after him. Although John was the first genuine prophet in four hundred years, Jesus the Messiah would be infinitely greater than he. John points out how insignificant he was compared to the one who would come. Remember what John would say later in John 3:30
30 He must become greater; I must become less.”
What John began, Jesus finished. What John prepared, Jesus fulfilled.
And then in verse 13, Jesus arrives. Everything that John had been doing to that point was preparing the way for something greater. Jesus is that someone greater. Look at verse 13.
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.
14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
John didn’t feel worthy to baptize Jesus, but Jesus assured him that it had to be this way. So, why did Jesus have to be baptized? Here are three reasons this morning.
1. To Fulfill All Righteousness
1. To Fulfill All Righteousness
By Christ being baptized He is making a public statement that He was set apart for God’s purposes and He is prepared to fulfill all of God’s requirements.
4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.
2. To Identify Himself with Sinners
2. To Identify Himself with Sinners
To be clear here, I am not telling you that Jesus sinned. Jesus never sinned. He did not need to repent. He did not need to make a change in his life. He was perfect. But He was setting an example for us to follow.
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
3. To Associate Himself with the Repentance Movement
3. To Associate Himself with the Repentance Movement
This new movement of calling people to repentance started with John the Baptist. Jesus was beginning His ministry by continuing John the Baptist repentance message. Jesus wanted people to see that this was the message that He was following.
If you want to know why you should be baptized, this is it. You need to follow the example of Jesus and be baptized.
Water baptism is a representation of you leaving the old life behind in the water and coming up and starting a new life. What happened to Jesus when He came out of the water. Look at verse 16 again.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
Everything Jesus did, his preaching, his healings, his suffering, his victory over sin and Satan’s power, he did by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even though He was fully God, He willingly laid aside and limited His rights and privileges as God. In becoming fully human, He had to operate the same way we must, as people dependent on God’s Holy Spirit. If Jesus could do nothing apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, how much more do we need the Spirit’s power.
1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
The Spirit equipped and worked powerfully through Jesus to accomplish God’s plan of restoring HIs relationship with all people. Jesus Himself would later baptize His followers with the Holy Spirit so that they too might have the Spirit’s power to accomplish His purposes for them.
The last thing I want to show you about Matthew 3 is the picture of the trinity that we get here. Look at verses 16 and 17 again.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Jesus’ baptism is an extraordinary revelation in that it gives a unique picture of the Trinity, the fact that the one true God exists in three distinct, interrelated, unified persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Look at the verses I just read to you.
First of all, Jesus is the one being baptised in water. He is Himself God and equal with God the Father.
The Holy Spirit, who is also God and equal with the Father, comes upon Jesus like a dove.
Then in verse 17 God the Father declares that He is well pleased with His Son, Jesus. We are getting confirmation of who Jesus is that day.
This scene reveals to us three distinct yet fully divine, fully God, and equal persons, each possessing all the characteristics of God. Yet all three exist in such unity that they are not three Gods, but one. Another way you can describe this is “three in person, One is essence.”
We must be careful not to misinterpret this as if the one true God has simply revealed himself in three different “forms” or expressions at different times throughout history. For instance, God the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus in the New Testament and the Holy Spirit now. The correct understand of this doctrine is that all three persons of the Godhead exist uniquely at the same time and are so completely united that they form the one true and eternal God. Both the Son and the Holy Spirit possess attributes that can only be true of God. None of the three persons was ever made or created, but each has always existed with all the character traits, power and glory of God.
This one God existing in three persons means that from all eternity, to the infinite past and forever into the future, there has always existed a perfect spiritual unity, a complete love, the expression of godly character traits, an absolute knowledge and a faultless interrelationship within and among the persons of what is referred to as the “Godhead”
15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
So, I have said all of this to say to you. You can put your trust, your hope, your strength, your joy, you peace, every part of your life in this book and know that this is the truth. God is a God that loves us, He died for us, He lives among us and He wants what is best for us.
And if you have not made a decision to follow Christ you need to do that today. God loves you and wants the best for you.