In his sermon 'He Will Baptize You,' Scott Brown discusses the profound significance of Jesus' baptism as described in Matthew 3:11-17. The sermon highlights that Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist serves as a prefiguration of his death and resurrection, the central principle of Christianity and all creation. Brown explains that the event illustrates the fulfillment of prophecies and the purpose of God's creation, emphasizing the resurrection as the hope for humanity. The sermon underscores the importance of baptism as a symbolic act reflecting repentance, death to sin, and new life in Christ, drawing parallels to Old Testament events like the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jewish sacrificial system. Brown also stresses that baptism is a testament of faith and a public declaration of God's work in believers' lives. Additionally, he reflects on God's sovereignty and control over history, encouraging believers to trust in God's plan and find hope in the resurrection's victory over sin and death.

Good morning. We're going to be reading from Matthew 3 verse 11 through 17. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His windowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his thrusting floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and you are coming to me. But Jesus answered and said to him, permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.' Then he allowed him. When he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him. And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon him.

And then suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, and whom I am well pleased. Father, we just thank you for this day. Father, we thank you for your mighty word. Father, we pray a blessing upon Scott as he comes to bring your word to us today. Father, I pray that you would just fully open our hearts.

Father, let us set aside the weak and focus solely on you right now. We praise Your mighty name, Lord. Amen. In times like these, I often wonder what will happen to us upon the opening of a passage of Scripture, because we've seen so many times that when we've opened up the Word of God that God has shaken us, He's changed our hearts, He's moved us, He's given us a new life, He's given us things to walk in that we never even knew before. Maybe we knew it in our brains, but somehow God in His own timing was opening it up to us.

And I don't know exactly what God has for all of us here, but I'm so grateful to be opening what is more powerful than a two-edged sword. And so here in this passage of Scripture in Matthew chapter 3, we find the first appearance of Jesus in his adulthood, and it happens at his baptism. And of course, John the Baptist, he's the Elijah of Malachi 4, has come as the forerunner to the Messiah. And the first thing that we notice in verse 11 is that John prophesies of a coming baptism, the baptism of Jesus. That's the first thing that we notice.

John has been actually prefiguring an event that the entire universe was created for. That's the significance of what is before us here today. The purpose of the ground that John the Baptist is walking on is to actually host an event called the death and the resurrection of Christ, a prefigurement of that event anyway. And there have been many prophecies of this event over 4, 000 years. Now John the Baptist is walking on the ground where there's another very vivid prefigurement of the death and the resurrection of Christ.

And so this is not only the central principle of Christianity, but it really is the central principle of everything in life. Without the resurrection there is no hope. If the power of death and sin has not been broken, there's no hope for us. There will be no progress and there will be no heaven because if there is no resurrection then there really is no light. And so, you know, this passage of Scripture has so much to do even not just with, you know, the grand scheme of salvation, but it has to do with every hope of everyday life.

Every disappointment is rolled up in the power of the resurrection in the sense that if you face difficulties and you have no idea what's going to happen to you, this you do know, that God is keeping His promises throughout history and He's keeping His promises through your life right now, and there's reason to hope. Without the resurrection, there's no hope for every nanosecond of everyday life. So this passage, it draws together so many very significant things. And so in Matthew 3, Jesus is baptized. He goes into the waters of the Jordan because there is much water there.

And he comes out, and the Holy Spirit descends upon him. That's a picture of the Christian life. And it's a picture of the life that God has for us today. So the central message of baptism has enormous significance. It is about the death and the resurrection of Christ, and it's so significant because it's a mini picture of the Gospel.

That's why I so delight in the times of baptism in our church when people go into the water and they come out of the water. It's such a happy time because there it is, a living demonstration of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a picture of victory and here, we've been reading this morning, 1 Corinthians 15, one of the most significant New Testament texts on resurrection. In Verse 57, Paul says, but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So this resurrection that John is prefiguring, that Jesus will prefigure, and then he will perform in his real death and resurrection, is really about a hope of victory through Jesus Christ.

So it has, it really does have so much to tell us today about whatever pressures that are in your mind right now, whatever difficulties, whatever issues you're facing. Let's be very clear here that this resurrection gives us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now while it's very clear that to John, the Baptist, that Jesus needs no cleansing from sin, it's also very clear that Jesus is doing a number of things. He's obeying his father, he's prefiguring his own death and resurrection, he's shepherding his people and teaching them to do what he has done. I think that's clear.

But there's more. This event, the resurrection, is actually the very center and purpose of creation and all of human history. And so not only is the resurrection the center of the Christian faith, but the resurrection is the event for which the entire universe was created for. The plan of God to save the sinners goes way back, even before human beings were born. And this event that Jesus is prefiguring in his own baptism is telling the story that God is centering the purpose of the entire universe on this event.

How important is baptism? How important is baptism? Even before there was a planet Earth, Revelation 13 says, speaks of the Book of Life of the Lamb of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. So there was a Book of Life before the foundation of the world, before any human beings were created. The resurrection was in God's mind.

There was a book of life. Those would be entered into that book. So the whole idea of baptism and resurrection is something that goes far, far back in the mind of God before there ever was anything created. And So before there was a planet Earth, before there were people or animals, before there was any sin, God planned the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And It was so much so that it was as if the lamb was actually already slain before the foundation of the world.

That's how clear, that's how real it was in the mind of God. So when Adam and Eve fell, the resurrection of Christ was prophesied there as well. In Genesis 3.15, the Lord God said to the servant, Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat the dust of the earth all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." He shall bruise your head means that Jesus is going to crush Satan's power. And we know from 1 Corinthians 15, we know from the other resurrection texts that it was at the resurrection of Jesus Christ that death was overpowered. And so this thing in the mind of God, this central purpose of the entire universe to display what was in the mind of God from eternity past is prefigured in baptism. How important is baptism? When God killed animals to make skins to cover Adam and Eve of their shame, he was prophesying of this central event that something had to die in order to cover the sin and the shame of mankind.

And it was his son who would suffer and die and be buried in the grave and then raised up to tell the story what happens, what can happen in a human heart at his repentance. When the children of Israel crossed over the Red Sea coming out of bondage from Egypt, they were slaves, they were becoming free. And Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 that they were baptized in the sea. They were prefiguring the resurrection of Christ. They were prefiguring the fact of what salvation really means, that you're set free from bondage to Pharaoh, from a very bad master, from a taskmaster who hates you, from a taskmaster who gives you no rest, from a taskmaster who belittles you and defiles you and enslaves you.

And it doesn't give you any Sabbath either. And so when the children of Israel crossed over the Red Sea, God was prefiguring the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The entire Jewish sacrificial system, with the killing of a sacrificial lamb for the sins of the people, prefigured the death and the resurrection of Christ, which is the purpose for which God created the world. So when we come to these symbolic prefigurements that are here in Matthew chapter 3, we have to understand that We're talking about something so significant. We're talking about the very reason for which God created the heavens and the earth and the animals and the human beings.

This is the purpose for the creation of the world. That's why Paul says of the Colossians, all things were created through him and for him. All things. So we know that when Jesus was coming to be baptized by John, as we see in this text, that he would, We know he'd have to travel about 70 miles to get to where John was baptizing. And so here what we find is the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus Christ.

From this time forward in Matthew, John will decrease and Jesus Christ will increase. And so there is enormous significance to this whole matter. Then we see in verse 14 that John is actually resisting the baptism. John doesn't want to baptize Jesus. And John tried to prevent him saying, I need to be baptized by you.

And are you coming to me?" So there are two things going on here. One is when it says John tried to prevent him, the Greek linguistic structure that's used here just indicates he's just constantly saying, no, No, no, no, no. He will not let it happen. This is John's disposition. It's a reasonable disposition.

John is baptizing for the repentance of sins. John knows that Jesus doesn't need to repent. We learn in the Gospel of Luke that he already said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John knows who Jesus is. He is his cousin, but he knows that he's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

So John knows what's going on. He knows that Jesus doesn't need to repent. He knows he's sinless. He knows he is the fulfillment of the prophesied Messiah. He knows who Jesus is and he says, no, I cannot baptize him.

And John recognizes him immediately. He knows his identity. And John also knows something else. John knows that he needs to be baptized by him. So John understands that he too will need to be baptized.

John understands, apparently, the baptism of Jesus Christ and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. How much John knew of believers' baptism, I don't know. But we do know this, that John knew that he needed to be baptized. Remember what it was said about John the Baptist? He was a great man.

He was one of the top guys. There was not another one born of woman who was his greatest John the Baptist, and he needed to be baptized. You know, there are so many people that I've met in life, they just say, I don't really need to be baptized. You know, I confess my sins, I've been converted, I go to church, I'm making progress, but I don't really need to be baptized. Well, hey, John felt like he needed to be baptized.

Hey, if John felt like he needed to be baptized, you should be baptized. If Jesus felt like he ought to be baptized, You also ought to be baptized. We'll get to that point later. But there are a number of reasons why it is necessary for Jesus to be baptized. One, God apparently has commanded it because He's doing the will of his Father.

Jesus says, I always do what my Father tells me to do. I always do His will. So Jesus is the submissive son of his Father and this request to be baptized actually has come from on high. And so Jesus is obeying his father and he's fulfilling, he's fulfilling this purpose of history. The other thing is he's being baptized for the sake of others.

He's being baptized so that his followers will follow in his footsteps, though he doesn't need the repentance that his followers all need. Now, the use of the term baptizo is here in the text. And this term is used in Scripture in a couple of different ways. The way that it's used here is of immersion. And the idea actually goes way back.

It is connected with the escape from Egypt and being baptized in the Red Sea in being sort of resurrected to new life. And then it's used here and other places. Every time the term is used in scripture, it indicates immersion. There's no other way to understand it. Every instance of the practice in the Bible shows immersion.

I know that this is difficult, but there's no. The Greek language has a word for immerse, and it's baptizo. There's a word for sprinkling, rontizo. There's one for pouring, koeo. But the word used here is the word baptizo.

And if you were sprinkled, you didn't experience what Jesus experienced on this day. What Jesus commanded in Matthew 28, what the Ethiopian eunuch experienced, and what Everyone else experienced explicitly in scripture regarding baptism was like this. There just is not an explicit case of anyone being sprinkled in the New Testament. And there are pictures of pouring baptismal candidates in early church art. But scripture is our only pattern.

Early church art and pictures are not our pattern. And this is the consistent manner of Scripture. So if, I mean, you might be asking, OK, so I was sprinkled. What do I do? If you were sprinkled, the view of our church is this.

If you were sprinkled and it was not a sign of your real repentance, then we would encourage you to go and become and be be baptized for because of your repentance because it's a sign of your convert your real conversion that your heart actually had changed and you had changed kingdoms. I'm not saying that your sprinkling makes your salvation invalid. I'm not saying that at all. If you were sprinkled and it was a demonstration of faith in Christ, then to become a member of our church, you would not need to be re-baptized. I don't know if you knew that.

That's the way our Constitution reads the way it is now. If you were sprinkled and you had genuine faith and because you were repenting of your sins and it was to represent a credible profession of your faith, then at least in our church you wouldn't need to get re-baptized. If you were baptized as a baby, we would just encourage you to consider that there's not a single instance of a baby being baptized in Scripture. There's not a single connection made between circumcision and baptizing in scripture. There's not a single instance where children were ever even mentioned in the context of baptism.

We would be willing to speak more deeply about that with anyone. In John 2, 23, we learned that John was baptizing there because there was much water there. And the picture in Romans 6, 17, and other places, pictures complete coverage. We are buried with him in baptism. When you bury someone, you don't sprinkle something over them.

You bury them. You put them under and that's the image. That's actually a consistent image of Scripture. So when Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch in Ash chapter 8, they both, Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, both went into the water and then they came out of the water. So that's our view.

To get more detail on our view, it's very clearly stated in the confession of faith of our church. So Jesus makes an appeal to John in verse 15. He says, Jesus answered and said, permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then He allowed him. So Jesus tells John, he's talking about us, I think he's talking about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Jesus says, no, the Father, the Son, the Spirit are saying, it's time for me to be baptized. John says, okay. So, and what are they doing? They're fulfilling all righteousness. One scholar says, to fulfill all righteousness means to complete everything that forms a part of a relationship of obedience to God.

So part of this fulfilling of all righteousness was an act of obedience. The Son does what the Father tells Him to do. And He is fulfilling, you know, so far in Matthew Jesus has fulfilled prophecies, now he's fulfilling all righteousness, two separate categories. And he was sent to demonstrate his obedience to his father, and he is doing a number of things. He's fulfilling the ceremonial law.

He's fulfilling all the laws of washings out of the ceremonial law. And He is showing what it means to be righteous, and that is to do the will of His Father in heaven. He's also identifying with sinners. Isaiah 53 says He was numbered with the transgressors. And I think this is so helpful and so wonderful to consider what Jesus was doing in identifying with sinners.

We know that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We know that He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We know that He felt every pain and every emotion that you and I have ever felt in our lives. He was the Word made flesh. He was the God-man.

He was fully God and he was fully man. And here in his baptism we see him demonstrating this whole idea. He's representing mankind in submitting to obedience. He's taking his place among sinners. He is the righteous one that enters into the normal experience of the believer.

We're commanded to walk in a manner that as He has walked, that we would be like Him. This is the whole principle that's here. Jesus is doing this to show us what to do, yet He, without sin and with no need for repentance, to do it. Hebrews chapter 2, verse 10, 11 says that in leading the way, He's the captain of our salvation and He's bringing many sons to glory. When I read this about Jesus getting baptized, It just sounds to me like He's leading His sons and daughters to glory.

He's leading them into repentance. He's leading them into death to sin. And He's leading them into new life and resurrection and the filling of the Holy Spirit. He is the captain of our salvation. Hebrews 2 reads, for it was fitting for him, it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren. So He is acting as a brother. He is the brother that goes into the waters of baptism first, and He shows us how to do it. And then He calls us to go to do the same thing. And He's the captain.

He's leading the way. He's showing us. And He's not ashamed. He's not ashamed to call us sons. He's done something that He wants us to do later on.

He is our Master. He is our Lord. We are His disciples. We are learning from Him. He says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and humble in heart.

This is what He's doing. He's teaching His disciples how to follow Him. He's teaching His disciples the glory of obedience and the beauty of salvation and what it really means in a very tangible and vivid demonstration called baptism. In Philippians chapter 2, Paul explains the basic assumption that explains all of Jesus' public ministry, including this. And he says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond-servant, and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man.

He humbled himself and he became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. Now remember this whole event is about glorifying the Father. It's about glorifying the Father who made the book of life from the foundation of the world. It's glorifying the Father who killed animals to cover the shame of Adam and Eve.

It's glorifying the Father who rescues His children out of Egypt in the terrible bondage of Pharaoh. And This is the glory of the Father. This ground that John the Baptist and Jesus are walking on, this water is meant to prefigure the central event of the universe and the event for which everything was created. And Jesus is doing this in an act of humility. He's doing what His disciples will do for many generations.

He's fulfilling the picture of the future state of his own body, his resurrected body. He's fulfilling the picture of the state of the resurrected bodies of those who have repented of their sins and trusted in Christ. He's fulfilling what will form the unity of the body of Christ. Because the Bible tells us that we were buried with him in baptism. We were actually buried when he When he was when he was buried in the grave we were we were buried with him and We were raised up with him This is the central issue of the universe.

This is how God is glorifying Himself in the world. Why is the world the way it is? Why did God create the stars the way He created them with all of the constellations and the way that you can mark time and locations. Why did God create all the animals of the earth? Why did He create the earth itself?

Why? Why did He create you and I? Why did He cause you to be born? Why did he cause you to be born? He caused you to be born, and you, and you, for one reason, for this reason, to die and be resurrected to new life.

This is not only the very purpose of all of Creation, but it's the purpose of every person's life here. How important is baptism? It was a symbol of his death and resurrection. It's important to understand what the Bible says explicitly about baptism. It is important.

And it's possible that there are some here that hasn't actually been all that important. And so let this just be a marker in your life that someone has said it's really important. Our Church embraces and defends a certain confession of faith called the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689. And I want to read the language. It's very carefully worded language.

It's very precise in its nature, but I want to read it to you so you can see what we mean by this. Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ to be unto the party baptized a sign of his fellowship with him and his death and resurrection, of his being engrafted into him, of remission of sins, of giving up into God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in newness of life. Paragraph 2. Those who do actually profess repentance toward God, Faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ are the only proper subjects of this ordinance. Paragraph number three.

The outward element to be used in this ordinance is water wherein the party is to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Paragraph number four. Immersion or dipping of the person in water is necessary to the due administration of the ordinance. So, our confession states it very plainly, but the baptism of Jesus here in the Jordan River supplies the pattern for Christian baptism. He's a living pattern for us. And while it's not comparable in the sense of the need for repentance with Jesus, it is comparable in all of the other elements of it, which we learn from the Apostles and which we learn from Jesus Christ himself at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew.

In Matthew 28, Jesus commands His disciples to go out into all the world and to make disciples of all the nations. That's the verb of the text, to make disciples. And then there are three participles, three steps in making men disciples. You go, and then you baptize, and then you teach them all things that God has commanded. And that's the pattern.

That's the New Testament pattern. It was instituted by Christ after the resurrection, and it is to go into all the nations. The apostolic pattern is to go and preach and baptize and teach. You see the pattern in Acts 2, Acts 8, Acts 17, Acts 10, Acts 11, Acts 16, Acts 18, and Acts 19 when baptism is dealt with. That's the pattern.

All these baptisms have the same pattern, preaching, baptizing, and teaching. So then there's the baptism itself in verse 16, and when he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately out from the water, and behold the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and a lighting upon him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. So it says that he immediately came from the water. And then the heavens opened.

Now, this was a miracle. What does it look like when the heavens are open? I've never seen the heavens open before. And it doesn't happen actually very often, does it? But they were open here.

The heavens were open for Stephen when he was being stoned, which is recorded in Acts chapter 7. The heavens opened and He saw the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God. So that was another time the heavens were opened, but the heavens were opened at that time and then there was the descent of the Spirit. He saw, He saw, Jesus saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove alighting upon Him. Now I think we need to be careful just to read the words slowly.

It was Jesus who saw the Spirit. We don't know if anyone else saw it, but we do know that he saw it. And it wasn't a dove. It was like a dove. It was like a dove.

We could have a discussion as to whether the making of a dove is a violation of the Second Commandment, which I would suggest that that's an important discussion. And then there was a proclamation from heaven in verse 17, and suddenly a voice from heaven came saying this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased So now God is identifying the one he has been speaking about Since before the foundation of the world when he wrote the book of life to speak of the Lamb that was slain, he's now identifying his Son and he's saying, this is that. He's identifying his Son as the promised Messiah, the one, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, who will be crushed, who will be laid in the grave but will be raised up again in glory. Isaiah spoke of this in Isaiah 42, verse 1, Behold my servant whom I uphold, my elect one in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him.

He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. This is a prophecy. Remember we were talking about Isaiah last week and how Isaiah is divided into two sections. One is the section of prophecy of the coming doom and collapse because of disobedience. And from chapter 40 in Isaiah on is prophecy of the coming Messiah, and it speaks of the times of refreshing that will come in through the work of the Messiah.

And here in Isaiah 42 verse 1, God says, Behold, my servant, whom I have pulled, my servant whom I delight in, he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. And this is that. This spirit descending like a dove is that. In Psalm chapter 2, which is also a Messianic Psalm, Psalm chapter 2 is, The way I understand it, it's the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament. And he uses the same language in Psalm 2 as we find right here in Matthew chapter 3.

Psalm 2 verses 7 says, the Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel." Psalm 2 is prophesying the coming of the promised Messiah, the Son of God, my Son.

That's who he's talking about. And his role in the world is to break the power of death, to break the power of the devil, and finally to rule and reign. It's a vision of victory. This is what the world was created for, is to declare the glory of the power of God, to rescue sinners, to take them to glory, and to destroy the works of the devil. And that happens in a certain way at salvation.

When you repent of your sins and you're born again, the power of death is broken on your life. The things that you knew were right to do, but you couldn't do them. You couldn't make progress because you weren't converted. The power of the devil had not been broken. Now, once the power of the devil has been broken, it doesn't mean you become perfect and you're victorious every moment of your life.

That's not what it means. But it means that there's hope and there's sanctification that is in progress, that you can change. And you thought forever that you could never change. But you repented and God brought changes in your life as prefigurements really to greater changes that are there. But this this is the reason for which the universe was created to break the power of the devil and to glorify God forever and ever by the destruction of the evil nations of the world and the work of the devil in the world.

That is the purpose for which God created the earth. And He's doing it by the sending of His Son, And this image of baptism is part of the storyline, part of the progressive revelation of God to declare His intentions in the world. He does intend to crush the nations. He does intend to belittle and unbind. The context here is, why do the nations rage in Psalm 2, and the people plot a vain thing.

The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel against the Lord and His anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in heaven shall laugh." God's not actually too worried about it, because He knows what He's doing. Because from the beginning of, before the foundation of the world, He designed that He would send His Son and break the power of sin and death. And that would lead to the final toppling of the nations. But it starts with the toppling of the rule of the devil in your heart.

And that's how it starts. You can glory in your salvation every time you understand that Jesus Christ has saved you and you've made one little bit of progress, let it just be a marker in your life that God is going to complete the work that He began. He will not only complete the good work that He began in you, He is also going to complete His great cosmic plan to sum up everything in Christ. And He will right every wrong, every injustice will be made just. He will bring every sin to judgment that needs to be, and He'll do it through His own Son.

God prophesied this moment when He spoke to Abraham in Genesis chapter 22, Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I tell you. Here God commands Abraham to do a very similar thing, to prefigure what he's going to do with his own son. Take your son, your only son, whom you love. That's what he says to Abraham. And then he takes his own son, his only son, whom he loves, whom He delights in, and He sends him to the cross.

Because that's why God created the heavens and the earth and everything that is in it. And then you can't miss the involvement of each person in the Trinity. The Father speaks, the Spirit descends, and the Son declares Himself to be fulfilling all righteousness. J.C. Ryle says that at the beginning of the world, the Father and the Son said, Let us make man, and now they are saying, Let us save man." Their voices from heaven, that doesn't happen very often.

Adam heard the voice of God from heaven in the garden. Adam, where are you? And then the Father's voice was heard again on Mount Sinai when God spoke in thunder and fire. And the third time, God the Father's voice was heard in Daniel chapter 4 when Nebuchadnezzar was walking in his palace and he said, is this not great Babylon which I have built? Isn't this amazing?

And God speaks And he says, the kingdom is departed from you, and they will drive you from men, and your dwelling place will be the beasts of the field, and you will eat grass, so that you'll know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men. And He gives it to whomever He chooses. God spoke then, God is now speaking here in this text, and then He speaks again on the Mount of transfiguration. So the voice of God doesn't come from heaven all that often. But he says, this voice says, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.

And so here you find this tender relationship between a father and a son. The term that is used is agapitas. Agape, it's a term of deep and abiding love. This is the kind of love a father has for his son. And it says, with whom I am delighted.

And here the father is looking to his son as someone pointed out on Tuesday morning before his son had ever done any works. This is the love of a father toward his son. Now this passage is not primarily intended to teach about a father-son relationship. The purpose of the text is to bring us to the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, to declare the glory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But there is something we can learn about our relationships together as fathers and sons.

The same word is used to explain the Father's love for believers in Romans chapter 1 verse 7. It's used in 1 Corinthians 414 in the same way. In Ephesians chapter 1, we read that we've been predestined to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace by which He made us accepted into the agapetus, the beloved, into the beloved. So what's happening here also tells a story about the relationships in the body of Christ, the relationships of fathers and their sons as well. The Apostle John understood that God's love for his Son was meant to teach believers God's love for them as well.

When he said in 1 John 4, 7 and 8, behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the sons of God. So here in this great passage that speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrating the will of the Father for the entire universe, we find the center of it is love. Love of a father toward his sons. So I'm going to give you a few applications here of this passage of Scripture. I just want us to really consider carefully this morning why it's so important that the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is for me.

Why? Why is it important? We know that it's important with God because it is the purpose for which God created the universe. But what about me? How do you wrap your arms around something that's so enormous in its significance?

I just want us to really consider what this means to me today. How is this designed to help me today? How does it help me do battle with the devil today? How does it help me love my brothers? How does it help me to love my sons and my daughters and my wife?

What does this mean for me? Another thing I want us to really consider is that this ordinance of baptism is an important ordinance because it tells the story of the Gospel, of repentance, of death, of resurrection, and new life, and the filling of the Holy Spirit. It's a picture of the whole Christian life in one ordinance. There are two ordinances that are given to the church. There's the Lord's table, which we will celebrate in just a few minutes.

And there's baptism. Those are the two ordinances. Both of them preach the gospel to us in beautiful ways. And they confront us in certain ways. You know very, very well how the ordinance of the Lord's Supper is designed to deal with you.

Because it's designed to deal with you in a lot of ways. It's the cup of blessings. So it's a time to just recall the great blessings of God upon your life to just bask in His love, His mercies toward you, also to examine yourself. So that ordinance is designed to do something to you. And I would just ask, How does the ordinance of baptism affect you?

Does it affect you in similar ways? And, you know, of the two ordinances, there's controversy and debate about it for sure. J.C. Ryle makes the point that there are two overreactions regarding baptism that you can have. He says that the first overreaction is to think of baptism like a magic trick, like it's something that you do and now you've set that aside and now you're done and now you're a Christian and you've repented of your sins and now you've baptized and it's going to somehow make you more holy.

That's one extreme. That's one overreaction, is to make baptism just another ritual in your life. The other overreaction, he says, is to take it too lightly and to say that it's irrelevant and to sort of embrace the notion, well, hey, I've repented, I go to church, that's enough for me, I don't need to be baptized. Ryle is saying that also is an overreaction to the whole matter of baptism. But, you know, baptism is a sign that a person has repented, believed in Christ, has been raised up to new life, has entered into the visible church, and is filled with the Holy Spirit.

That's what baptism is meant to say in the world. And it's to say that there are people like that in the world. And it's for an individual to say, that's who I am in this world. I've repented, and the Spirit of God has entered into my soul. And I've been baptized in the Holy Spirit by Jesus Christ.

And I now live a life in the Spirit, not in the flesh. Another thing that I think is really clear here from this passage, by way of application, is that God is in control. And if he is in control to such a degree that all of history has its center in one moment of time, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then what that means is that he's in control of every single moment in history. Because he is glorifying himself through history. And He's glorifying Himself through your history.

And that means that where you are today is under the watchful eye of God. But more than that, it's under the careful control of God. God does not waste any trials. He doesn't waste any times of waiting. He doesn't waste anything in His kingdom.

And here we are all standing, or sitting here together, and I just want us to take note that the authority of God is unstoppable in the world today. And it's unstoppable with us as well. And you might have many longings, you may have hopes that have been just crushed, maybe even today, maybe yesterday. But I want us to just be reminded for a minute that the God who created the world for death and resurrection And the God who orchestrated every moment up to that time and every moment up after that time is the God who's governing everything in your life today. You can rest.

You can be free. You can be happy today that you are where God placed you. And now it's just for us to continue to cry out to Him for how we might live in the midst of the trials and the temptations. Think of the Lord Jesus Christ and the trials and the temptations and the mockings and the scourgings that he experienced. These were ordained by God.

His trials were perfectly timed by his Father in heaven in order to declare His glory in the world. And that's the purpose of your trials and my trials. They have only one purpose, to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. If death is defeated like this, you know Don't you think that the smaller things are also resolved by him as well? Something so gigantic as death And yet we're concerned about things far smaller than that.

God's giving us a signpost here that He is in control and that He is sovereign. And then finally that God is good, that He takes away the sins of the world, and that God is wise, that He shows the way, and he demonstrates what is good and what the Lord desires of you to repent and be baptized raised up to new life filled with the Spirit going out into the world into all the nations preaching the gospel, and baptizing and teaching them everything that He commanded. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, we are amazed at your grasp of all things. We're amazed at your kindness to sinners.

And I thank you Lord for this great picture of what you have planned for eternity past. How you are the captain of our salvation. How you are bringing many sons to glory. Through the one who died and rose again and was filled with the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thanks for watching!