Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Good morning, church. Good to see you today.
[00:00:04] If you are a guest with us this morning, and we haven't had the chance to meet, my name is Chet, and so glad that you're here and love the chance to meet you and shake your hand. But a couple weeks ago, we started a sermon series in the Gospel of Matthew, which talks about the life and the teaching and the events of Jesus. And we're gonna continue that today. But before we do, let's pray.
[00:00:31] Father, thank you for this time to come together, to seek your presence and your help in our lives, to just be shaped and renewed and strengthened by you. And we pray, Father, that you would grace us with your presence.
[00:00:50] We pray, Father, that we could experience your fatherly love this morning in a very real, real way.
[00:00:59] And we pray that Christ would be glorified in all of it. And we ask this through his great name.
[00:01:05] Amen.
[00:01:09] Well, several years ago, me and some friends went on kind of like a pretty, you know, adventurous hike and a lot younger then. And we were kind of having fun. And my one buddy is like, he's just really. He's athletic, he's a risk taker, he's calm in the midst of pressure, all these things. And he was doing some pretty crazy stuff that he could do. Cause he's capable for it.
[00:01:39] And there was this other guy with us that is not capable for it at all.
[00:01:44] So all those things I said about this guy, he's the exact opposite of that. And so he did this, and he was trying to get this other guy to basically take this huge leap over these rocks. And it was a pretty dangerous scenario. And he was egging him on to do it. He's like, come on, do it. You know, and then I was looking at it and I was thinking about it, and usually, you know, I'm not like the safety police usually.
[00:02:10] Usually I'm like, yeah, it's a bad idea, but give it a whirl. You know, that's kind of usually my attitude, especially at that stage in my life. Like, I was even worse about that sort of thing.
[00:02:21] Now that I have kids, I'm like, you know, I'm becoming the safety police. Very.
[00:02:25] More and more every day, just see things different, you know, but anyway. But at that season, I was like, yeah, you know, I wasn't really in that. But then I was, like, looking at it, I'm like, dude, there's no chance this guy's gonna make that.
[00:02:37] And then, like, we're gonna have to, like, carry him out of here with his broken legs. Like, this is just. This is not gonna work. And so on the one hand, my buddy's like, do it. On the other hand, I'm like, don't do it.
[00:02:51] Do it. You ever been in one of those scenarios?
[00:02:55] And it's sort of like, on the one hand is the voice of death, you know? And that's do it. You're like, dude, I see how this is going to end. Broken legs. And then on the other hand, don't do it. Is the voice of life.
[00:03:10] Like, you will.
[00:03:12] This is not your moment. Let's just let this pass. And I think, in a sense, in life, you're always sort of faced with those two voices.
[00:03:23] And do you ever sometimes find them in your own head, in your own heart?
[00:03:28] One voice calling you this way and one voice calling you this way?
[00:03:34] And have you ever noticed that they're not the same?
[00:03:37] That sometimes there is a voice that you listen to, and it's a voice of your heavenly Father.
[00:03:43] And as you listen to that, it brings you into life, into strength, into hope, into all those things.
[00:03:52] But then sometimes there is another voice that brings you into pain and emptiness and hopelessness and all that kind of thing. And today, when we look through Matthew's gospel this week and next week, we're gonna see Jesus encounter two different voices.
[00:04:13] And these are back to back. Today we're gonna look at the end of chapter three, and then next week we're gonna look at chapter four. But Jesus is gonna encounter two different voices. And one is the voice of life, one is the voice of his heavenly father and your heavenly father speaking to him, and the other is the voice of the enemy.
[00:04:35] And we're gonna see how Jesus responds differently to both of these voices, but also how they help us to understand our lives and to understand these voices and what to do with them. So today we're gonna look at the end of Matthew, chapter three, and I'm gonna pick up at verse 13. We left off there. And just to give you a little bit of context, Matthew, chapter three, we've been introduced to John the Baptist, who was baptizing people, and they were coming to him and confessing their sins. And Matthew says, this is the one who is preparing the way of the Lord. This is the one that Isaiah had talked about 700 years before.
[00:05:18] And then we get to verse 13, and here's what it says. It says, then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him.
[00:05:31] John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to Me.
[00:05:38] But Jesus answered him, let it be so now. For thus it's fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.
[00:05:48] Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from and behold, the heavens were open to him. He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And then listen to this. Behold, a voice from heaven. Here's the voice of life.
[00:06:08] Here's the voice of our heavenly Father.
[00:06:11] This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
[00:06:21] Now, this scene is so powerful and so beautiful. And I think there is a lot for us to receive from it today and to think about. But the first thing I want us to see is the unworthiness of John in this passage.
[00:06:40] So Jesus comes to John.
[00:06:42] And John is this unique man. He's got this awesome calling from God, but he's also just a human being.
[00:06:54] He's like you and me. Spiritual awareness and the grace of God on him. That when he sees Jesus, he recognizes that Jesus is God who has come in the flesh to save his people and to save us. And so John knows that Jesus. He's almost just instantly aware of Jesus true identity. Which a lot of times, as we'll read through the Gospels, people don't always see or understand who he actually is. But John, John did. In fact, in the Gospel of John, when he sees Jesus, at first John writes that he says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
[00:07:39] And John knew. He knew who Jesus really, really was.
[00:07:44] And so Jesus comes to John and he's like, john, I want you to baptize me.
[00:07:50] And John's like, Jesus, no, I am unworthy to baptize you.
[00:07:59] Who am I like? I recognize who you are and I know who I am. Cause I live with myself every day. And let me tell you, it's very disappointing.
[00:08:10] Who am I to do this for you?
[00:08:16] And this is, I think, important to see. Because here's what you need to know about your life. And I need to know about my life. God does not use us according to our worthiness.
[00:08:29] John was right.
[00:08:31] He wasn't worthy of that.
[00:08:34] And Jesus certainly did, did not need John to do that for him. As if Jesus was lacking in something.
[00:08:42] But what John realizes, yes, I am unworthy of this and I need to be baptized by you.
[00:08:52] But what he didn't realize was that this was God's purpose, that God was setting an example. God was showing something that we needed to see and to experience.
[00:09:04] And what John shows us is that God does not use our life according to his worthiness, but according to his purpose.
[00:09:14] And as God is at work in our life, the best way to respond is not to argue with him how worthy we are or unworthy or how he should use us, but to simply do what he says.
[00:09:29] Which is where John gets to Jesus is like, listen, I need you to do this. And then finally, John kind of comes around. I mean, it's kind of a funny scene in a way where, like, John is standing before the creator of the universe, is like, let me tell you how to do your job.
[00:09:48] You're missing it here. And then finally it's like, no, he knows what he's doing. It sort of reminds me a little bit. I had a neighbor that. That I grew up with, and he was really, like, all into dirt. He was really good with that stuff. He could fix things at a very young age. He was just very mechanically minded and very good at it. That's obviously why we were good friends.
[00:10:12] Shared passion and skill.
[00:10:15] I don't know why you're laughing at that.
[00:10:19] And anyway, so I remember, though, I remember one time when he was young, he had like, this pretty cool go kart. And he's like, chet, you know what a governor is? And I was like, yeah, they, like, run the state of Ohio.
[00:10:32] I've heard of it. Yeah, I've heard of the. You vote for them. He's like, no, no. He's like, it limits how fast something can go. Like, no, I've not heard of that. He's like, well, I got. There's one on my go kart. And I took it off and this thing goes way faster than it should.
[00:10:47] And we had a lot of fun on that thing.
[00:10:52] May have been some destruction and broken bones, but everybody made it out, you know, but he took the governor. And I think that there is always a sense where we wanna put a governor on our life and say, God, this is how you can use me, Lord, I'm good up to this point, Lord, you can use my life in this way. But here's just, I think, something to pull away from the scene with John. You don't get to set the governor.
[00:11:21] That's not your responsibility.
[00:11:23] And in fact, part of what God's purpose is, is to show the greatness of his mercy by working through very imperfect and broken people like us.
[00:11:37] That's actually part of his plan.
[00:11:39] That's not a bug in the plan. It's a feature of it. It's part of how God wants to glorify his. His name.
[00:11:48] And so what John does is he finally just gets on board with it and says, all right, Lord, I will serve you in the way that you're asking. And he baptizes Jesus. Now, the second powerful part of this story is the righteousness of Christ that we see here.
[00:12:09] Now, if you were to kind of study a little bit More closely, Matthew 3, you would see that you, when John was baptizing, people, were confessing their sins, and that was part of it. But when Jesus is baptized, and that's certainly part of John's confusion, he's like, you don't need this. You don't need to repent.
[00:12:29] So what's going on? And Jesus says, well, this is to fulfill all righteousness.
[00:12:36] And so Jesus leads us in the direction of righteousness. And here's what I think that means is, number one, he shows baptism as an example for us that Jesus was baptized. And if you're a follower of Jesus, that's something he wants for each of us as a step of obedience, as a step of identifying our lives with him, as a step of saying, I'm following Christ.
[00:13:08] He has changed me and transformed me, and I am his and he is mine. And so Jesus is baptized in part as an example for us. Jesus is the type of leader that goes first.
[00:13:23] He leads from the front. Don't we always respect people in life that lead from the front?
[00:13:29] Right. Don't we always want leaders that are like, listen, I'm not asking you to do anything I'm not doing.
[00:13:35] I'm not asking you to take any step that I haven't first taken. Right. That's so much at the heart of, I think, inspiring and healthy leadership. And here Jesus is doing that for us. He's giving us that example. And here's what it means for some of us is maybe some of us today, we've committed our life to Christ.
[00:13:54] We've never taken that step of baptism.
[00:13:57] And that is part of what Christ calls us to do.
[00:14:01] And maybe in this season, that is the next step of obedience for you. And I know sometimes people are like, dude, don't make me get. I gotta stand up in front of people. Yes.
[00:14:14] I have to say something.
[00:14:16] Yes. That's actually all you have to say? Yes.
[00:14:20] So, you know, make it as easy as I can.
[00:14:23] But here's the deal. It is about you, but it's also not only about you.
[00:14:29] Because sometimes what God does is as people publicly proclaim their faith in Christ, God uses that to strengthen and build other people's faith. And so, yes, baptism is for you, but it's not only about you.
[00:14:46] And one of the most powerful things we do as a community of Jesus followers is follow this example of baptism.
[00:14:57] And as many of you know, my favorite Sunday of the year is when we go to the Jordan river, also known as Lake Erie, and we get to baptize so many people. And I don't know about you, but it connects me to the presence of God every single time.
[00:15:15] I never get tired of it, because it's something that Jesus models and we're meant to do. Now, here's the other side of this. He says it's to fulfill all righteousness. Now, what we will see through Matthew is this theme of fulfill come up again and again and again, that Jesus is the fulfillment of everything God wants for you and for me.
[00:15:44] See, part of the good news of what Jesus has done for us is that we get to live in his righteousness. And let me explain this for a second. He is our example, but he's more than that.
[00:16:03] He is actually our righteousness. Now, here's what I mean by that. There's a book I read maybe a year or so ago, or read most of it, but it's called Union with the resurrected Christ by G.K. beale.
[00:16:17] And G.K. beale is a really great New Testament scholar. And basically in that book, he's trying to summarize everything in the New Testament. And here's what he says. Basically, you could understand everything in the New Testament in your Bible in this way. What does it mean to be in Christ? In Christ?
[00:16:40] What does it mean that our lives are in Christ? Christ.
[00:16:45] And it means a whole lot of things, and it means a whole lot of good things. But at its core, it means if you give your life to Christ, here's what it means. It means God doesn't treat you based on how you live your life. Day to day.
[00:17:04] God isn't keeping a tally and being like, Monday was really good Tuesday, let's not even talk about that.
[00:17:11] It's gonna take you a full week and a half to climb out of that mess.
[00:17:15] God, he's not telling these things and saying, okay, Chet's gotten a little bit more righteous, and now I'm going to bless him.
[00:17:25] Right? We think that our default is to think that God operates like that, and he's keeping tally on our behaviors and the good things that we're doing and the bad things. And it's sort of all balancing out. Of course, if you really keep tally, the balance is never in your favor. Amen. If you're honest, you know, if you're Weighing that scale, maybe, but if you're honest, it's a bad game to play.
[00:17:54] But the good news is the New Testament says when God looks at us, get this, he treats you as if you live the perfect life that Jesus lived.
[00:18:05] Then when God looks at you, he looks at you clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.
[00:18:12] And that's how he treats you. And that's how he responds to you. And that's the future that he's creating for you. He's giving to you what Christ has earned and we never could.
[00:18:27] And that's why as Christians, we say, hey, the gospel, the message of Jesus really is good news.
[00:18:35] Because if it's up to me, it's bad news.
[00:18:39] But if it's up to Christ, the one who fulfills all righteousness, then it's good news. You with me on this? And so today, God doesn't look at you and me in the same way. We look at you and me.
[00:18:56] God, when you look in the mirror and you see that person and you think about all of what your life is, the whole mixed bag of it, and then you look in the mirror and anybody get those thoughts where all of a sudden, like all these shameful moments pull up in your mind. You're like, oh, so. No, just me.
[00:19:20] Great, we'll talk later. Let's pray God doesn't look at us like that. And this is so hard to really get into our hearts and our souls.
[00:19:30] When he looks at you, he sees the face of Christ.
[00:19:34] He sees my Son, with whom I am well pleased. You didn't earn that. You didn't deserve that. You didn't build your life up to it. That's the gift of his grace in Christ, that we stand in his righteousness. You with me on this? He goes through this to fulfill all righteousness and to unite our lives with him. And then we see this beautiful picture of the Father's affirmation, which you need to know today if you are a follower of Jesus, that is the affirmation on your life, too. That is the identity that you and I get to live in. Now, what's cool about this passage, this is Matthew, chapter three. So we're not very far into the Gospel. In fact, Jesus in Matthew hasn't done anything yet.
[00:20:28] He was born.
[00:20:30] You know, there's a story around that. And then we come to this baptism moment. We've lost about, like, you know, 30 years of time, but Matthew doesn't really include anything that we need to know. And now we're at this moment. He hasn't Ministered, yet he. He hasn't healed people and taught and done all these amazing things. But yet, before any of the ministry happens, get this, he is affirmed by his heavenly Father.
[00:21:01] This is my son right now, right now, before his work begins, I am pleased with him. Here's what's so powerful about this. And here is one of the most powerful things about the Christian life is you have an identity to live from, not for.
[00:21:26] See, a lot of times we might expect that this is my son with whom I'm well pleased. It would come at the end of the story.
[00:21:35] We would expect that. Well, he's well pleased because he did it right. He lived it out, he fulfilled all those things. And then you get the affirmation.
[00:21:46] But do you see the power of this? The affirmation comes first, the ministry comes second, Identity comes first, the work comes second.
[00:21:58] Then, in other words, what Jesus is showing us is that if I'm gonna live the life that God has for me, I have to understand first my identity in him and then live from that place, not for that place. You with me.
[00:22:15] I don't build up to it.
[00:22:17] I'm giving it as an act of grace and I live from it, from the very power of it. Now, this is such a huge deal because all of us long for an identity that is not performance oriented and that is bigger than us and beyond us, and that's actually given to us.
[00:22:42] See, sometimes, you know, maybe we're really into our work and there's a part of our soul that's like, I am my sales numbers.
[00:22:50] And so our identity is so wrapped up in what we do that when it's going good, we're feeling good, maybe we're feeling too good and we're starting to get a little bit arrogant.
[00:23:01] But when it's going bad, we're despairing. And what's the problem? Our identity's tied too much to what we do. It's performance oriented. There's a great book I've been reading called the Stories We Live by by Michael Keller. And he talks about this reality in our world. And he has some really insightful things to say. And what he says that in times past, we as human beings, we used to find our identity by looking at the expectations of society and people around us.
[00:23:36] And so, you know, you're like, well, my dad was a farmer, my grandpa was a farmer. I'm going to be a farmer. And identity was something that you looked at your family or you looked at your culture, you looked at what their expectations were, and you lived up to them, right? And in many ways, that was kind of for a long time, how people really understood themselves. But there's limitations to that, right? Cause maybe, you know, your dad is this. Your grandpa is this. Your mom is this. But then you're like, but that doesn't really connect with me.
[00:24:09] And so if it's always outside in.
[00:24:13] That doesn't always work. You with me. But then he says, in the modern world, instead of looking outside, we tell everybody, look inside.
[00:24:22] We tell people, follow your heart.
[00:24:25] Look inside. That's where your identity is. Understand? And then people start to look inside. They're like, I'm confused.
[00:24:32] Amen. Like, I don't know what. My heart doesn't know what my heart wants. You with me. And you look inside, because here's the truth.
[00:24:42] When you're trying to find your identity, looking out, there can be problems because people might have the wrong expectations for you.
[00:24:50] And then you're trying to live up to these unhealthy expectations. That doesn't work. But then you look inside and you're like, all right, let me dig into this confusing labyrinth and figure this out. And you feel all this pressure.
[00:25:04] And then you're like, I don't even know if my heart is unified in what it wants.
[00:25:08] Cause here's the truth.
[00:25:09] After Sundays, there's a part of me, it's like, chet, it's Sunday.
[00:25:16] You should start your week out on a healthy step.
[00:25:21] You should eat good tonight. Should go to bed early.
[00:25:24] You should, you know, maybe go for a walk or get a work in. Because you should be healthy. You're getting older. Wanna. You know, now's the time. And that is a true desire in my heart. But then there's another desire there, too. It's like, chet, church is over.
[00:25:42] Get some Mr. Hero.
[00:25:45] Amen.
[00:25:47] Let's get one of those cheesesteaks and those waffle fries.
[00:25:53] And let's get that cheese sauce.
[00:25:57] And not the little one.
[00:25:59] Let's supersize it.
[00:26:03] Amen.
[00:26:04] Cause we gotta be able to dip the fries and the cheesesteak in it.
[00:26:08] You gotta have enough.
[00:26:12] And that's a real desire. If I saw.
[00:26:15] That's real.
[00:26:16] They're both real. I wanna be healthy. I want Mr. Hero, too, which is a real chat with a real Slim Shady. Please stand up. You with me?
[00:26:25] Well, they're both real. They're just not aligned.
[00:26:30] They're not connected. And so we tell people, oh, find your identity inside. Go look. And they're like, dude, I. I can't be this and that.
[00:26:39] And they're Both real.
[00:26:42] So what do I do? But here's what we see in the baptism of Jesus. You don't look outside and you don't look inside. You look up.
[00:26:52] You get me? That's your identity.
[00:26:55] It's not out there and it's not in here.
[00:26:58] Both of those have their own problems. Here's where it comes from. The one who created you, the One who loves you.
[00:27:07] The one who came and died for you.
[00:27:09] The one who is baptized in this scene and the one who says, this is my Son, with whom I am well pleased.
[00:27:18] And Church.
[00:27:20] Jesus knew that. He knew he was the Son with whom he is well pleased.
[00:27:28] That affirmation was. Wasn't ultimately for him.
[00:27:33] It's for you and me.
[00:27:36] It's for us to see that as we receive our identity from God, that's the identity that we're given.
[00:27:48] This is my son. This is my daughter, with whom I am well placed, pleased.
[00:27:57] If you are a follower of Jesus today, do you really believe in your heart that the pleasure of God rests on your life?
[00:28:06] I think it's one thing to think about it up here.
[00:28:10] It's another thing for that to go into my heart. You with me?
[00:28:15] But yet I need it in my heart, and you do too. I need to live from God's pleasure, not for something else.
[00:28:28] I need to see that I am his.
[00:28:31] That in Christ is my righteousness. He's not pleased because of my behavior, but because of what Christ has done for me, which I could never do for myself.
[00:28:44] And Christ was so effective at it that I get to live as his beloved son all the days of my life.
[00:28:55] That's how great Jesus is, that he guarantees that identity. And guess what?
[00:29:02] No one can take that from you. You have a bad week at work. Well, that stinks. But you are still God's beloved son.
[00:29:10] People get upset with you for this reason or that. Well, that stinks. But you are still God's beloved daughter.
[00:29:18] The Browns lose.
[00:29:21] Well, that's normal.
[00:29:24] Although, no, I gotta say, I've been talking so much smack in the last two weeks, I'm. Yeah, it's so I'll just leave that one. Hang out there.
[00:29:33] But Church, you get what I'm saying? When your identity is rooted in the Father's heart, it changes you.
[00:29:44] It changes you.
[00:29:45] My buddy Austin, he is part of our church and he produced this amazing film called the Father's Heart. Yeah. Amen.
[00:29:56] And I got to watch it with him this week. And it's stories of real life stories from Uganda. People that are in Uganda and just went through terrible abuse or neglect or tragedy. I mean, all kinds of things just so real, so hard, so dark, so difficult.
[00:30:16] And it tells their life story, and then it tells how the turning point was recognizing the father's heart, which we see in these passages.
[00:30:26] This was recognizing that they were. Their identity was not everything that people had done to them.
[00:30:34] Their identity was not all the failures and shortcomings of their life. Their identity was not their part poverty or their pain or their identity was, this is my son. This is my daughter, with whom I am well pleased. And when that clicked, their lives changed. It's such a powerful movie.
[00:30:56] We're gonna show it to the church. We got a date coming up, so make sure. Get that on your calendar. Come see it. You'll be moved by it.
[00:31:04] And it's a great one to invite someone with you too, as well. But it's all about what we see here today. And every soul needs to hear this. You need to hear this today. I pray you would feel it from your father.
[00:31:21] I read a book years ago called Healing the Masculine Soul, and I really, really liked it. And it's by Gordon Dabney. And he says that fathers and sons are obviously such important relationships.
[00:31:34] And this is obviously important to me because I'm a son, but now I'm also a father with a son.
[00:31:40] And in the book, he says that the way God designed it is that as earthly fathers, we are meant to give our sons this type of affirmation that the model that we see between the father and the son in this is a model for every father in every son, and that we need our sons. They need to hear from us fathers to say, you are mine, I love you, I delight in you, and you are strong and capable for everything that is ahead.
[00:32:20] And fathers, if you're still got breath in your lungs, get that message into your son.
[00:32:28] It matters so much. We need that affirmation to live by. So I was thinking about this, and I was writing this sermon this week, and so Teddy is three now. And so I was like, you know what? I'm gonna just speak this into his soul. And so I was putting him down to bed, and I said, teddy. And I, like, got down. I looked in his eyes and I said, you are my son and I love you, and I am so glad. I'm delighted to be your dad.
[00:32:54] And you are strong and dangerous for good.
[00:32:58] And then he looked really scared, and he's like, can I go in my crib now?
[00:33:07] I was trying to affirm him, but I think he thought I was yelling at him.
[00:33:11] Here's the truth. No earthly father gets it right. You with me? Even when you're trying, you don't get it right. And maybe some of us, maybe we never got that affirmation from our Father and we don't even realize it. But, man, it's hurt and wounded our soul.
[00:33:26] But get this.
[00:33:28] You have a heavenly Father.
[00:33:31] And only he is the only one that can give it to each of us in the full way that we need it in Christ. You are his son. You are his daughter. You belong to him.
[00:33:49] He delights in you.
[00:33:52] I get it. You get disgusted with you.
[00:33:55] We all feel that. We all know that. But he delights in you.
[00:34:03] And he will never fail you or forsake you, or turn his back on you and church. You need to know that. But you need to feel that and love. Live from that.
[00:34:15] Because we live from identity, not for it. Let's pray, Father.
[00:34:25] Lord, we thank you for this powerful, powerful scene, Lord, words cannot do it justice, nor can this scene just be explained.
[00:34:38] It needs to be experienced.
[00:34:41] And it can only be experienced by your spirit bearing witness with our spirit, that we are sons and daughters of the most high God.
[00:34:53] So, Lord, I just pray in the power of your spirit that you would make that felt in this room, in each individual heart.
[00:35:06] I pray, Father, that the power of identity would be at work in us.
[00:35:12] I pray we could live from this place, this place of the pleasure of God.
[00:35:23] We could see, Lord, it's not because we are delightful. It's because Christ is delightful.
[00:35:30] It's not because we are righteous. It's because he is righteous.
[00:35:36] It's not because we are perfect. It's because he is perfect.
[00:35:41] And I pray it would draw our love for him in a greater way.
[00:35:48] Bless us with that, Lord. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen.
