Alright, let's open our Bibles
again to Matthew chapter 3. The title of the message is, Why
Was the Lord Jesus Baptized? In verse 13 we read that our
Lord came from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized, and that was
a three-day walk. It's pretty evident our Lord
put a lot of important on being baptized. He walked three days
to get there to be baptized. And a question I would like to
ask and answer this morning is why? Why did our Lord make that
journey to come be baptized of John? Now, it's obvious to us
why a believer would be baptized. It's to confess our faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. When a believer is baptized,
we're confessing all of our hope of salvation. is in the Lord
Jesus Christ, his death, his burial, his resurrection. When
he did that, he did that for me. It's our joy to confess Christ
and be identified with him in that way. But why was the Savior
baptized? That's the question I'd like
to answer. So let's begin here in verse 1, chapter 3. In those
days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and
saying, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Now, John the Baptist
was the first person to baptize people. In the Old Testament,
there were many different washings and ceremonial washings and things,
but John was the first person to baptize people, to immerse
people, hence his name, John the Baptist. And John's message
was, repent, repent of your sins for the kingdom of God is at
hand. Repent, the King is coming. Repent. You have need of repentance
because you're a sinner. This is his message. Now the
word repent, it means a whole lot more than just feel sorry
for. The word actually means a change of mind or a change
of purpose. It's a turning. And when we truly
repent, we change our mind. We have new minds. Of course
it's changed. We change our mind about what sin really is. We
change our mind about who I am, my sin. We change our mind about
how a sinner is saved. Of course, we repent from our
sin. Everybody wants to repent from
their sins and not sin anymore. But just as important as repenting
of our sin, if we're going to come to Christ, we're going to
have to repent of our religion. And we'll see this, how what
John's talking about here to this particular audience he's
preaching to, we're going to repent of our religion justification
by works. We're going to have to repent
of our works. We're going to have to change
our mind about our works and turn from those things. We're
going to have to change our mind about our efforts to justify
ourselves and earn some kind of favor from God. We're going
to have to turn. from our works, from our wicked
works, and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ for all of our salvation.
There's going to have to be a change of purpose. The believer's purpose
is to be found in Christ. Not be found in my works, but
to be found in him. We turn from our works to the
kingdom of heaven. This kingdom that John says is
coming. And the only way to enter that kingdom, not by our works,
It's through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is his
message, repent. And this is he, verse three,
that was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, saying, the voice of
one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make his path straight. John was foretold of in the Old
Testament. He's the forerunner of Christ.
When you hear this one coming, you know the Messiah is coming
close behind. He's the last of the Old Testament
prophets. There hadn't been a prophet in
Israel since Malachi. Over 400 years, God's kept silent. No prophet. He sent no message
to Israel. And now John comes, preaching
Christ. Preaching the same message that
all the other Old Testament prophets preached. Preaching Christ. Except
John's message is prepared. He's coming. Quickly, he's coming. The Messiah is coming. John came
to point out the Messiah. This is him. Behold, the Lamb
of God which taketh away the sin of the world. And look here
at verse 4. This is the description we have
of John. He's just a voice. He's just a voice. Christ is
the Word. John's just a voice. And the
same John had his raiment of camel's hair and a leather girdle
about his loins. And his meat was locusts and
wild honey. I don't know what John really
looked like, but I'm telling you the image I have of him in my mind is a
wild man. I mean, just his hair, his underwear,
he's wearing his camels and his leather girdle. I mean, he's
a wild man. What he looks like, he's eating
locusts and wild honey. Matthew Henry says locusts were
considered good food and they're easy to digest. I don't know
about you. I just didn't have red meat.
Maybe John was healthier, I don't know. He's this wild man eating
locusts and wild honey. But the reason Scripture tells
us this is to tell us this about John. He's a plain man. He didn't have time to get caught
up in all the things of this world. John was consumed with
preaching Christ. John was consumed with pointing
things to Christ. He went in this thing for gain.
If he's in it for gain, he hadn't been down there at the temple
with his father. He could have been, but no, he
went in this for gain. He left that and went out to
preach the gospel. And that's good that John's a
plain, ordinary man. Because he can preach to plain,
ordinary people. A plain person could come and
just enjoy hearing John the Baptist preach. And he had to leave. the organized religion of the
day. Look here at verse 5. If you're going to hear, John
left it, and if you're going to hear the gospel, you're going
to have to leave the organized religion of the day. Then went
out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round
about unto Jordan, and were baptized of him, confessing their sins. If you're going to hear the gospel,
you've got to leave Jerusalem. You've got to leave Judea, and
you've got to go out there in the wilderness where God's property
is. And the same thing's true today.
You're going to hear the gospel. You've got to leave the organized
religion of the day. They don't preach anything. You've
got to go out into what the world calls a desert. And if you're
going to hear the gospel, you have to realize this. Your heart
is a desert where there's no water and there's no life. That's
where you hear the gospel. The gospel is only good news
in the desert, a place where there's no life. That's where
you're going to hear the gospel. And the people who came out and
heard John and believed his message were baptized. Now, this word
baptized, it means to immerse. It means to submerge. It means
to cover oneself wholly with the liquid. I read a story about
this word baptized. You know, a lot of people are
saying, well, should you sprinkle or what should you do? And the
word baptized, one of the earliest places they could find it being
used is a recipe for pickles. If you're going to take that
cucumber and make it into a pickle, you immerse it in whatever liquid
it is that you, but it's got to be immersed. And that's what
baptism is. Scriptural baptism is immersion
in water. It's not sprinkling. It's not
dumping a little bit of water on somebody's head or sprinkling
water in their face. It's immersion. Because baptism
is a picture of the death, the burial, and the resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ. When someone dies, you put that
dead body in the ground, you don't just sprinkle a little
bit of dirt in that face. You don't just throw a cup full
of dirt in there. You cover that dead body up. It's buried out of sight. And
that's what baptism is. It's immersion. Baptized into
Christ. showing the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And baptism is important, very
important. Our Lord showed it was important.
He walked three days to get there to be baptized himself. It's
important. But now baptism does not save. Baptism doesn't cleanse us from
any sin in any way. But I wouldn't give you a plug
nickel for the profession of faith someone has if they have
not confessed the Lord publicly in believer's baptism. It does
not save, but it's the Lord's commandment. It's his way to
follow the Lord and confess Christ. Now, John's baptism was the baptism
of repentance. See here in verse 2, he said,
Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Verse 6, they
were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. In verse 11, John says, I did
baptize you with water unto repentance. John's baptism was a baptism
of repentance. When John baptized a person,
that person was confessing, I'm a sinner. I'm completely sinful. There's nothing good in me. I'm
so sinful. Nothing will cleanse me of my
sin, except the coming Messiah. Now, people who are baptized
by John, They may have had some idea, although I think if they
had any idea at all, it was very, very little idea about the work
of the coming Christ. I don't think they had much idea
that what they were doing was picturing the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ. Even the disciples who were personally
taught of the Lord had no idea what he was doing going to Jerusalem
until he rose from the grave. Then they understood. So when
John baptized someone, what they were primarily doing was they
were confessing their sin, and they were renouncing any hope
of salvation through that Jewish religion, through the works of
the law. And John's baptism is like believer's baptism in this
way. It is a symbol of humility. John's baptism was in that muddy
river of Jordan, that same muddy river that old Naaman had to
humble himself to dip in to be cleansed of his leprosy. Same
muddy river. And it's humbling to this flesh
to admit that you're a sinner. It is one thing to admit in your
mind, I'm a sinner. It's another thing to come out
in front of these folks and admit, I'm a sinner. I am a sinful man. It's humbling to the flesh. But
that's what people confessed when John was baptizing them.
They were confessing the same thing that a believer confesses.
I am so sinful. I'm completely sinful. I am so
sinful that my only hope of salvation is in the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Only His blood could cleanse
a sinner like me. The stain's too deep. There's
too much sin. The only way that I can be saved
is if he dies for me and he's buried and he rises again for
me. That's my only hope of salvation
because I'm such a sinful, sinful person. You know, you don't have to be
good enough to come to service here. God forbid we would ever
make someone feel like you've got to be good enough You've
got to meet certain criteria, you know, you've got to dress
right, you act right to come to service here. God forbid. God didn't make it that way for
us to come to Him, did He? I hope everybody that comes here
is bad enough to need the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't be good
enough to come to Christ. You have to be bad enough. You
have to be bad enough. You must have no goodness at
all. in order to come to Christ. And
when a person is baptized by John, that's what they're saying.
And Believer's Baptism says the same thing. I'm so bad, my only
hope of salvation is in Him, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
verse 7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees
and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation
of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bring forth therefore fruits, meat for repentance. The best man has to offer, the
Pharisees and the Sadducees, none of us can stack up to them.
The best man has to offer, John calls them a generation of vipers. He says, you have descended not
from Abraham, but from the serpent that deceived Eve in the garden.
You're not sons of Abraham, you're children of Satan. And that's
what every last one of us are by nature, a generation of vipers. children of Satan. Now, a viper
can be deceiving. When our girls were little, we'd
take them to the zoo. I liked going to the zoo and
seeing animals, but now you come around the corner and there's
that reptile house. I just do stay out of that place, honestly.
It's not my favorite place to be. But the girls want to go
in there, so we'd go. I guess it's all right if one
of those things are safely behind the glass. And I'd look at them. I'm scared to death of this place,
but I look at him and I think, wow, that light, he's pretty. Look at the colors on that thing,
beautiful. Don't be deceived. Inwardly,
that thing is full of deadly venom. And that's what the Pharisees
were. On the outside, boy, they're
colorful. They're beautiful, look at that.
As far as man's eye can see, inwardly, they're full of deadly
venom. They're full of deadly hypocrisy,
full of dead man's bones, what they're full of. And John asked
them, did you come here to repent of your sin? Did you come here
to repent? What these men need to repent
is their righteousness. Did you come here to repent of
your righteousness? Who preached the gospel to you?
Somebody had to. If you come here to repent, you
didn't hear the gospel down there in the temple. Somebody had to
come preach the gospel to you. Did you come to repent? Did you
come to hear the gospel? Or did you come to see a show?
Did you come to see the wild man out here preaching who eats
locusts and wild honey? And John tells them, you bring
forth fruit meat for repentance. Now, what fruit is John talking
about there? And I'm not interested in this
so much for the Pharisees and the Sadducees and for old Frank. What is this fruit meat for repentance? Well, the word meat means fitting. Well, the only thing fitting
that we can do, a sinful person, the only thing we can do to fit
it for repentance is come to Christ, is to confess Christ
in believer's baptism, and confess Christ is our only hope of salvation. Believer's baptism is the way
we publicly confess that I've turned from my idols, I've turned
from my works, and I've turned to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well,
you know good and well the Pharisees were not about to do that. Don't
be hard on them. Not one of us ever turned to
Christ until God moved in power and mercy and gave life and caused
us to turn to him. He called us to him so that we
could not resist, so that we didn't want to resist. And John
tells him that you've got a religion, and you take pride in being the
seed of Abraham. You take pride in being a Jew,
but you're really the seed of your father, the devil. Look
what he tells him in verse 9. Think not to say within yourselves,
we have Abraham to our father. You know, Abraham was their father,
but Adam was their first father. See, they didn't go back far
enough. Adam is their first father, and that explains everything
you need to know about their sinful condition. Don't think
to say within yourselves we have Abraham'd our father. For I say
unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children
unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid
unto the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which bringeth
not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."
Now, he tells them, don't you think you're family tree. is
going to make you acceptable to God. Don't think that he's
going to accept you because of who you're related to. And I
say the same thing to our children here. You know, whatever age
you are sitting here, I was your age, sitting here in the service. My parents brought me to every
service. Don't think that you're a believer just because your
parents are. You must come to Christ yourself. That's exactly
what John's telling these Pharisees. Don't think that God's going
to accept you just because of who you're related to. Being
a physical descendant of Abraham, that's not how life's given.
Being a physical descendant of any believer, that's not how
spiritual life comes to someone. Being a physical descendant of
Abraham is no big deal. God could make one of them out
of rocks. He made Adam out of dust, didn't
he? Couldn't he make somebody out of a rock if he wanted to?
That's laying the axe to the root of the family tree. The
tree is corrupt. Whether you want to say it's
from Abraham, or you go back to where you ought to go back
to, to Adam. The tree's corrupt. And if you're going to preach
the gospel right, like John the Baptist does, you're going to
lay the axe to the root of that tree. That's a dead tree. It's
going to bring forth nothing but death. Now verse 11, he says,
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. But he that
cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy
to bear. He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire. Now John says, I baptize you
with water, and that's all I can do. All I can do is baptize you
with water when you confess Christ. I can't put grace in your heart.
I can't put spiritual life in you. There's one coming after
me who's mightier than me. He can, and he does. Just that
for his people. He puts a new heart, a heart
of flesh. He puts faith and life in a person. He causes his people to be born
again. And when the Lord does that,
he takes that old stony heart out and puts a new heart, a heart
of flesh, the heart that loved the Lord Jesus Christ in his
people. It's Christ who gives life to
his people. And he baptizes them. He immerses them. He submerges
them into Christ and into the Holy Ghost. And John says he'll
baptize you with the Holy Ghost. He'll baptize you into the Spirit
of God. And he says with fire. Now what's
this fire that John's talking about? It's the fire of God's
wrath against sin. That's in context That's the
fire that he's talking about here. In verse 10, he says, he
talks about the tree that doesn't bring forth good fruit is hewn
down, it's cast into the fire, the fire of judgment. At the
end of verse 12, he talks about that chaff God's going to burn
up with unquenchable fire. That fire is God's wrath that
burns against sin. Now, I'll confess to you, that
thought scares me. It worries me, because I know
this. I can't stand up to the fire
of God's wrath against my sin. I have no interest in personally
being baptized into the fire of God's wrath against my sin,
because I can't stand up to it. But what John's talking about
here is not a person personally being baptized into this fire.
He's talking about being baptized into this fire in Christ, in
our substitute. The fire of God's judgment fell
upon, it enveloped, our Savior was immersed in the fire of God's
wrath against the sin of His people. But that fire didn't
consume that sacrifice. Sacrifice consumed the fire. The sacrifice, the Lord Jesus
Christ caused that fire to go out. Because the sin that was
laid on Him was gone. And now, for believers, there
is no fire of God's judgment. It's been extinguished on Christ
our substitute. And fire in its place, it's not
damaging. We've got a little fire pit.
And, you know, we build a fire out there rarely, not as often
as Jant would like, but rarely. As long as that fire stays in
that fire pit, the whole town's safe. Everything's not going
to get burned up, you know, it's not going to start spreading,
as long as it's in its place. Now that fire, it's in its place. And it doesn't consume, it doesn't
damage, it doesn't harm God's people. It gives us warmth and
light, because that fire was consumed upon Christ our sacrifice. And John goes on here in verse
12, talking about this Savior, the one who's so great, he said,
I'm not even worthy to hold his shoes, whose fan is in his hand. And he will throughly purge his
floor and gather his weed under the garner But he'll burn up
the chaff with unquenchable fire. Now, there were three kinds of
tools that they used on the threshing floors. When they would harvest
the wheat, they'd bring it to the threshing floor, and there
were three tools that they'd use. And I kind of envisioned
them kind of looking like a rake. One of them had just a few teeth
on it, and they'd use that to separate the chaff and the wheat. Then there's a second tool. It
had many teeth on it, and they'd use that to cleanse the wheat.
I guess they'd knock all the dirt or whatever off of it. It
was used to cleanse the wheat. And the third tool is this fan
that John refers to. And they'd wave that fan and
create a breeze. Well, there's no substance to
the chaff. It's much lighter than the wheat.
And that breeze would blow the chaff away, but leave the wheat
there on the floor, the threshing floor, and then they'd gather
up wheat. No chaff. Because it's all been
blown away. It's been separated and blown
away and they've gathered together just to weep. And that's what
our gathering's here. We're at the threshing floor.
There's a mixture of chaff and wheat. We don't know who's the
chaff and who's the wheat. We don't know who's a believer
and who's not. But God does. And he's going to separate them
when it's time. It's just like the tares sown
among the wheat. Just leave it alone. God will
separate it when it's time. He'll separate the unbeliever
from the eternal punishment. He'll separate the believer from
the eternal glory. That's God's duty. Leave it in
His hands. And John points all this out
to drive home this point. The preeminence of Christ. How great He is. He has all preeminence. That's John's point. And as he's
preaching Christ, as he's preaching the preeminence of Christ, Then
cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized
of him. But John forbade him, saying,
I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?
And Jesus answering, said unto him, Suffer it to be so now,
for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered
him." Now again, the Lord is showing us here the importance
of baptism. He came to be baptized of John. And our Lord also showed
his humility here. Our Lord humbled himself every
step he took on this earth. He humbled himself. As a man,
he humbled himself in every way in order to be the substitute
for his people. And here our Lord, the Lord of
glory, the Savior of his people, humbled himself. to be baptized
by John in this baptism of repentance. Now, doesn't our Lord, first
of all, give us a good example to follow? Shouldn't we walk
humbly? Well, we've got to be proud of.
We should walk humbly, following the example of our Lord. And
old John, he understood exactly what was going on here. And that's
why he reacted like Pia reacted. Remember when the Lord would
humble himself to stoop down before Peter and wash his feet?
Peter sucked his feet back. He said, Lord, you'll never wash
my feet. You're never going to humble yourself and wash my feet.
And the Lord said, now, Peter, if I don't wash you, you've got
no part with me. And Peter stuck those feet out
and said, Lord, wash all of them. And that's why John's, he's not,
he's not being rebellious here. He's in awe. of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He said, how can I baptize you?
I have needed you. What John's doing is recognizing
his own sinfulness, his own unworthiness, and recognizing the Lord's greatness. Isn't this another good example
for us to follow? Which of us is worthy? Anybody
here worthy of the Lord's grace? Anybody here worthy to worship
the Lord? only in Christ, only in this
One who has all preeminences come. And this is interesting. Look over at Luke chapter 1.
John the Baptist had the Spirit of God from the
womb. He was filled with the Spirit
from the womb. In Luke 1, Well, let's go back
up to verse 13. This is the angel coming, telling
about John's birth. The angel said unto him, Fear
not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth
shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And
thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his
birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and
he shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be
filled with the Holy Ghost. even from his mother's womb.
This man was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's
womb. And here he is an adult, been
filled with the Holy Ghost all his time, and what does he say?
I'm a sinful man who needs salvation that can only be found in Christ
the Son. Doesn't that click, all this
thing about people looking for to be filled with the Spirit
and do the miracles of the Spirit? John was filled with the Spirit.
And what did he say? I need salvation in the Son. I need this work of the Son.
I need to be baptized of thee. And he doesn't mean he needs
for the Lord Jesus to immerse him in water. What he means is,
I need your work of redemption that's pictured in baptism. I
need your death, your burial, and your resurrection. I don't
need the picture. I need the real McCoy. I need
salvation that's only found in Christ. And our Savior doesn't
deny that's what John means. He doesn't say, no, no, you don't
mean that. No, you mean that. But what he says is, John, suffer
to be so now, suffer to be so, and do what I ask, because it
becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. And what does our Lord mean here?
It becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Our Lord had no
need to be baptized with this baptism of repentance. He didn't
have any sins to repent of. He didn't need to confess his
sins. Our Lord is in the middle, right
now, of fulfilling all righteousness as a man, as a substitute for
his people. He hadn't sinned, and he never
would sin. So he doesn't have no need for
repentance. So why does the Lord Jesus insist
on being baptized with this baptism of repentance? Well, the key
word is us. It becometh us to fulfill all
righteousness. The Lord is talking here about
a union with his people. What he did, everyone in him
did. In that sense, he says, let us
fulfill all righteousness. Because what he did, everyone
in him did. And when our Lord is baptized,
He is identifying himself with sinful people who do have sins
to repent of, who do have need of repentance. He's identifying
himself with sinners who need to repent of their sins and of
their righteousness, who need to repent of everything we are.
He's identifying himself with these people who are so sinful,
their only hope of salvation is in Him. Now remember, the
key word is us. He's talking about a vital union
between God's people and the Lord Jesus. Let us fulfill all
righteousness. When our Lord fulfilled all righteousness,
we fulfilled all righteousness in Him. Look over Mark chapter
10. When Christ suffered and He died,
every one of His people suffered and they died in Him. And that's what our Lord is going
to teach James and John here, Mark 10, verse 35. James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
come unto him, saying, Master, we would that thou shouldest
do for us whatsoever we shall desire. And he said unto them,
What would ye that I should do for you? And they said unto him,
Grant unto us that we may sit. one on thy right hand, and the
other on thy left hand in thy glory. And Jesus said unto them,
You don't know what you ask. Can you drink of the cup that
I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I shall be baptized
with? And they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, You
shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of, and with the
baptism that I am baptized with, withal shall ye be baptized.
Now, our Lord's not talking about immersion in water here. He's
talking about his sacrifice for sins. He's talking about him
actually being immersed in the fire of God's wrath and judgment
against the sin of his people. He's talking about actually suffering
and dying for the sins of his people. James and John didn't
know what he was talking about. And they said, oh, we can. No,
you can't. None of us can. But the key word
here is us. When our Lord suffered, when
He went to the cross and He suffered the wrath of God for our sins,
all of His people went there in Him. All of His people suffered. That's how we suffered that way.
That's how we were baptized, with the baptism wherewith Christ
was baptized. When He went, we went there in
Him. When they laid His dead body
in the tomb, His people went there in Him. And when he came
out of that tomb, his people came out in him, raised in newness
of life in him, in Christ. Our Savior identified himself
with people who are sinners, to give us a picture of how he's
going to save those people from their sins. And our Savior also
gave us commandment, and he gave us an example to follow. Look
over at Matthew chapter 28. Believer's baptism is a commandment. A believer is commanded to repent
and be baptized. Look here, Matthew 28, verse
19. Go ye therefore and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to
the end of the earth. Now look over Acts chapter 10,
this is exactly what the apostles did. This is after Peter preached
to Cornelius in his house. In verse 47, Peter says, Can
any man forbid water? that these should not be baptized,
which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we." And he
commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. And
they prayed and they tarried there certain days. He commanded
that they be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When Christ was baptized, he
identified with his people. And when a believer is baptized,
we're identifying with our Savior. When a believer is baptized,
we're saying we fulfilled all righteousness in Christ our substitute. All of our salvation is in the
doing and the dying of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is all my hope
of salvation. Now, baptism does not fulfill
all righteousness in the sense that baptism makes us righteous
in any way. Baptism is a confession. of what
the Lord's already done in the heart, that He's already made
us righteous in Him and we're confessing His work for us. Baptism is the God-given way
that a sinner confesses Christ as the Savior. This is the God-given
way for a sinner to identify with Christ. Well, of course
I want to be identified with Christ. Who wouldn't want to
be identified with Him? The thing I cannot get over is
he would be identified with the likes of me. That's God's grace. That's the miracle of God's grace. And when he did that, look what
happened here, verse 16. And Jesus, when he was baptized,
went up straightway out of the water. And, lo, the heavens were
opened unto him. And he saw the Spirit of God
descending like a dove and lighting upon him. And, lo, a voice from
heaven sang, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Not the baptism of Christ that
just pictured how God saved sinners. The whole trinity appeared together
in one place. There's the Son, representative
of his people. The Father spoke from heaven.
The Holy Spirit descended like a dove and lighted upon our Lord.
And they did that because the whole Godhead is involved in
the salvation of God's elect. You must have all three. You
can't leave one out. The Father choosing a people
unto salvation, the Son coming and redeeming them with his sacrifice,
with his blood, with his righteousness, and the Holy Spirit coming and
giving those people life. And here in a moment, we're going
to baptize our sister Maggie and our brother Luke. in the
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, because
it took the whole Godhead to save them from their sins. And
that's what they're confessing. And notice what happened here.
Just now the picture of the redemptive work of Christ. The heavens were
opened. The heavens were opened. The
sacrifice of Christ opened heaven for men. There's no other way
into the presence of God other than through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The heavens were opened unto Him. Unto Him. And they're open
to us in Him and through Him. And the Father spoke from Heaven. This is my beloved Son. How He
must love His Son. The Beloved. He loves His people. with that exact same love in
Christ. It's infinite. It's unsearchable.
It's eternal. We're in love with that same
love in Christ. In whom, he said, I'm well pleased. How pleased is the father with
the son? He exalted him back to his right
hand. I mean, he can't be more perfectly pleased. And he's pleased
with every one of his people with that same pleasure. That's what Maggie and Luke are
going to come and confess here after we sing a song.