Sunday Sermon: The Baptism of Jesus to Fulfill all Righteousness (Matthew 3:13-17)

Matthew 3:13-17 and the Meaning of Jesus’ Baptism

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book.

On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe.

We continue our study of the life and time of Jesus Christ in our study of the book of Matthew. Last week, having looked at the ministry of John the Baptist preparing the way, and today we get to the baptism of Jesus in Matthew chapter 3, beginning in verse 13.

The word of the king. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? But Jesus answered him, let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him.

And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to this passage today, may we understand what is being said here when Jesus said to John, This is being done, for it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

What does this mean? That our Lord Christ, in even his baptism, has fulfilled all righteousness. May we come to know and understand this, so that we behold the work of our God and King, with all the more reverence what he has done for us.

Lord, prepare our hearts today also as we hear this word, and we sow it upon our spirits, that we are also preparing our mind and heart to gather at this table, at the Lord's table this morning, to partake in communion.

The body that was broken for the forgiveness of sins, and the blood that was spilled for us with Christ's death on the cross. We think fondly also of one another, for we come to this table together as equals.

There is no one above or below each other, for we are all sinners in need of the righteousness of our Savior, which was given to us at his cross. We think also of our brother and sister, Dave and Vicki, as this will be the last Lord's Supper that they partake in with us, at least as far as David's position goes as elder with us here at this church.

And as you are guiding them on to the next chapter of their lives, that they're getting things finished and accomplished here in this church, at home, and as they're about ready to hit the road. But we pray and ask that the work that they have done so faithfully here in this church continues to echo for generations as we remain faithful to the word of Christ.

It's in his precious and holy name we pray, and all God's people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated. So I was baptized as a teenager. I had given my life to Christ at a very, very young age. I've shared my story with you before in that I was four years old.

When I got on my knees in my bedroom, I was alone. Nobody else was around. I didn't even tell my mom and dad what I was doing. But I got down on my knees and folded my hands and looked up at my bedroom light because I didn't know where else I was supposed to look.

But I said to my Savior, I said, I believe in you. You are my Savior. You have forgiven me of my sins. And I said, please take my life and do with it what you will. I don't know that I fully understood everything that I was saying.

I certainly didn't have much of an understanding of sin and repentance. I had some understanding of it. My parents had talked to me about it. I'd grown up in church. I'd heard it talked about by my Sunday school teachers and other things.

But what child at the age of four really understands what it means to die to yourself and to live to Christ? So any work that was being done in my heart at that time would certainly have been the Holy Spirit.

It definitely wouldn't have been anything according to my will or knowledge. There were certainly selfish periods that I entered into in my life. But all through my life, I was constantly being convicted by the Spirit.

There was never a time, even when I would fall into these patterns of evil and sinfulness, that I thought to myself I was doing something right. The Spirit was always convicting my heart and telling me, you know what you're doing is wrong.

You know the precepts that your parents raised you in, the Word of God that you were taught from a young age. I knew those fences that had been put up around me and that I was operating outside of those boundaries.

And so I'm grateful to the Lord that He had given a spirit in my heart to not only be convicted of the sin that I would enter into, but that I would be so convicted to even turn from it. And to turn from it with weeping and with tears.

To be so convicted over what it is that I had done in rebellion against God that I, as Peter did, I wept bitterly and asked for God's forgiveness. And it was in times like that that verses like 1 John 1 -9 became such a wonderful solace.

If we ask forgiveness for our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What a wonderful joy it was to pick myself up off the ground and know that I could stand before the Father spotless and righteous without my sins being held against me.

Not because of anything that I had done, but because of what my Savior had done for me. Even though I gave my life to Christ at a young age, I was not baptized until I was a teenager. And then, even truly understanding what it was that this represented.

I was being buried with Christ in my sins and I was risen with Him to new life. The pastor who baptized me, his name was Wayne Wilson. He was a wonderful, meek man and a great preacher to grow up under.

This was one of those guys who loved the three-point sermons. And I could still remember Wayne Wilson holding his Bible. Like me in my early pastoral ministry, he didn't stay behind the pulpit. The pulpit was up there on the stage, but he didn't stay there.

Eventually, his Bible would end up in his hand like this and ever so slowly, but surely, he would creep out from behind that pulpit and end up over here somewhere. I don't really know why he did that.

Pastor Wilson would make his points. It would be point number one. And his hand would come out there like that and it would shake. Point number one! It would just tremble up there with point one. And then he would give his point and go through the scriptures.

Point number two! And that hand would just tremble up there as he just emphatically, with every muscle that was in his arm, tensed up to make that next point. I remember the way he preached all the way through that.

It was a pleasure to have been baptized by him and something that I think of fondly. My sister was baptized on the same day, but my sister and I went to completely different paths. She would eventually renounce her faith.

As for me, the Lord has been faithful to keep me in that path of righteousness. I had gone astray as much as my sister had, falling into sin, but I am thankful that it didn't overtake me, but that I listened to the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

I consistently remember my baptism. I know the church where I was baptized. I've taken my kids by it and I've pointed at it and said, that's the church where your daddy got baptized. The layout of the sanctuary wasn't too much different than this.

There's a baptismal right behind the pulpit, just like this one. I constantly in my mind come back to remembering being dunked under the water and coming up again as an action, a declaration of my faith that I have been washed in the blood of Christ.

There is no magical property to baptism. There's nothing about the water that makes you a different person when you came out as when you went in. You're still exactly the same person. But the Apostle Peter talks about baptism as being an appeal to God for a clean conscience.

As in this action, just like in prayer, prayer itself is an action. But in the action of baptism, you would be making an appeal to the Lord, clean my conscience of the evil and the sin that I've done against you, so that I may know with confidence, my sins are forgiven.

And in Christ Jesus, I stand before God brand new. An illustration that I often bring people to, and I talk about this with couples that I'm counseling before being wed, before a marriage. I will say to the groom, I will say, your wife is going to come down that aisle dressed in white.

Why is it that the bride traditionally comes to the groom dressed in white? It's because as she comes down that aisle to you, she is spotless. And there is nothing in her past that you can hold against her.

Just as when we come to Christ, he holds nothing in our past against us. We are washed and made brand new before the Lord by the forgiveness that we've been given because the price has been paid for us by Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave.

And we remember that resurrection. We remember the fact that we've been raised from death to life in this act, in this practice of baptism. Now, I've been explaining to you here at the start of this sermon, our baptism.

And most of you probably could have articulated an understanding of our baptism similarly to the way that I just explained to you, or when I talked to you about it last week as well. We were talking about the baptism of repentance that John the Baptist gave.

But what does it mean for Jesus to be baptized? We know why we need to be baptized. We've been sinful. We've been wretched before a holy God. And it's by Christ's death and faith in his finished work that we've been made brand new.

Christ was perfect. He was sinless. He was spotless. He doesn't need to be cleansed of anything. So why was Jesus baptized? Matthew 3, verse 13. Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him.

Jesus’ Baptism as Fulfillment, Not Cleansing

Now, before I go on, we see two locations mentioned here. Jesus came from Galilee, so he came from the northern portion of Israel down to the southern area in Judea to the Jordan River where John was doing his ministry.

That's the second location. We have Jordan. He comes from Galilee to the Jordan. There are many people that think that in order to have a right and proper baptism, we need to go to the Jordan. Usually it's celebrities, right?

Some celebrity claims that they've found Jesus, and so what do they need to do? They need to go over to Israel, and they need to be baptized in the Jordan River. And boy, this just becomes a public tabloid event, practically.

With all kinds of photographers there, and it's going to wind up in the news feeds, and you're going to see it on the Internet or Facebook or something like that. So-and-so just found Jesus and went to the Jordan River to be baptized.

But like I said to you a moment ago, there's nothing magical about the water when we go into it and when we come back out. So there is nothing more holy about the waters of the Jordan than there is about the water that's back here in this baptismal.

Now, we've not cleaned out this baptismal in a little bit, so the Jordan might actually be a little bit cleaner than this baptismal here. You have to stir up the chlorine in there, which we do every time that we do a baptism, because otherwise it just kind of sits there on the top of the water.

And we get spiders that get in there, and they die. So if you've ever looked in there, you've seen the dead bugs. We need to do a baptism soon so we can get that cleared up there again. So the Jordan River is nothing more holy about that water.

I do think that it's very fascinating to be able to go over to the Holy Land and look at that, to see the land, to kind of get the basic layout of things and see some of those what are called tells, the archaeological sites where those cities, those ancient cities that once were there are still being excavated and uncovered.

We call those digging sites tells. You can go there and, well, this tell was that city, and this tell is this city, and here's the Valley of Megiddo, which we refer to in the book of Revelation as Armageddon, when that battle is going to be symbolized, or the symbolism of that battle that's happening in that particular valley.

It's neat to stand there and look at all of that and get kind of an idea of what it would have been like during the life and time of Jesus. That's certainly interesting. But there's nothing mystical or magical or overly powerful or even pious or holy about the waters of the Jordan.

It's just water. And this thing that people like to do to want to go over there and get baptized there, as if that baptism is going to be better than any other kind of baptism. I tell you, I would say the baptism in your local church is better than going over to the Jordan and getting baptized there.

But it comes back to that thing that the Apostle Paul even rebuked in 1 Corinthians 1, where he says, some of you are saying, well, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I am of Christ. It's everybody using these names to one-up the other guy.

I am of this teacher who's better than this teacher. Well, I am of Christ, which is not even being said in a reverent way. It's to be said, I am more Christian than you are. I remember there was a man who was upset at me for certain things that I was teaching, and so he left this church, and he wrote a 9 ,000-word diatribe against all the problems that he had with Pastor Gabe and had posted it on Facebook.

One of the things that he did right off the bat at the very beginning of his diatribe, he referred to himself as a Christian, capital C-H-R-I-S-T, lowercase I-A-N. That's how he referred to himself over the course of the document, as if to say, I am a better Christian than this man.

What hurt my heart was not really the things that he was saying about me, but it was that he would consider himself so highly, and that I hope that the Lord eventually did humble his heart and that he repented before God.

But we should not ever think of these things as being greater than another's. My baptism was better than your baptism, or something like that, because I was baptized by so-and-so, this famous person.

That has nothing to do with it. As the Apostle Paul said, are we divided? Am I not of Christ? Is Cephas not of Christ? Is Apollos not of Christ? So then all who are baptized are baptized not into a preacher.

When you're baptized, you're not baptized into the Jordan. You're baptized into Christ. We looked at that last week, reading from Romans 6. We've been buried with Christ, and we've been risen with Him to new life.

So it doesn't matter whoever this person is who has administrated this baptism. The baptism is Christ's, and we are in Christ. Every once in a while, I'll have somebody that will come to me, and they will say, Well, I was baptized in such-and-such a church.

Is that okay? Is my baptism still legitimate? And in those cases, it depends. And there are some baptisms that are non-Trinitarian, meaning that you are baptized in a church where they reject the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

They just think God appears in different modes. Sometimes He's a Father. Sometimes He's a Son. Sometimes He's a Holy Spirit. And we refer to this as modalism. They would deny that God is Trinity, that He is one God in three persons.

And in that case, you probably not received a legitimate baptism. But then there are other occasions where a person might say to me, Well, I was baptized, and I don't feel like I was a Christian when I was baptized, but I feel like I'm a Christian now.

And I want to test them on that, because there should be a difference between who you are now and who you were when you were baptized. You're probably going to look back at that immature individual and go, Boy, what was wrong with that guy?

Or what was wrong with that girl? I still didn't even know even half the things that I know now as a maturing Christian. So there's certainly going to be a difference. There's certainly going to be a growth and a maturity.

So we can evaluate those things and determine whether or not that baptism was legitimate or not. But we shouldn't just automatically think that because I felt a certain way about my baptism back then, and I feel different about baptism now, that somehow that delegitimizes my baptism.

Or another one that I'll receive is that I was baptized by a pastor, and that pastor has since left the faith. So now is my baptism delegitimized? No, because you weren't baptized into that pastor. You were baptized into Christ.

The real question is, where are you in the midst of this process, in this sanctification, in the growth in your faith? Not what happened to that guy, but have you legitimized your baptism by confirming your calling and election?

Peter goes through that in 2 Peter 1. Now confirm your faith. So that's just to make the point that our baptism is not legitimized by location or by the person that does it, but we are baptized into Christ and in Him alone.

Jesus came to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? Now when I was studying this earlier this week, reading in verse 14, John would have prevented him.

My mind went to Matthew chapter 16, so 13 chapters after this, when Jesus explains to his apostles that he's about to go to the cross and die. But he explains to them, fear not, I'm coming back to life again.

Three days later, he even says that to them. But what was Peter's response to Jesus' explanation about his death and his resurrection? Peter stands before him and goes, no, Lord, I would never let you do this.

I would never let such a thing happen to you that you would go to the cross and suffer and die. Peter would have prevented him. Same sort of statement made there about Peter's intentions as with John's.

But Peter had a little bit different thing going on than John did here. For Jesus does not rebuke John. Rather, he explains to John. Why is that? Because John had a different approach. He asked this question of Jesus.

I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? Had John not received his explanation, he would have prevented Jesus from being baptized. It was out of ignorance that he would have done so. Peter's intention was quite a bit different, for he was thinking with the mind of a man and not with the mind of God.

And that was exactly what Jesus rebuked Peter for. John here desires to follow what it is that God has intended for the sake of righteousness. That's what he wants to do. So that's why he wanted to be baptized by Jesus.

But Jesus explains to him, verse 15, Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Now, you may not have given much thought to this. There's certainly various periods in my life, even as a pastor, that I've come back to this and have thought, what does this mean?

And as I come to you in explaining this today, this is not the end-all, be-all understanding of what it means to fulfill all righteousness. There is more to study. There is more understanding to come to.

But we're going to develop the best picture that we can, at least as far as this morning goes, as far as the next 20 to 30 minutes go, in understanding fulfilling all righteousness. And when Jesus explained this, John consented.

And Jesus was baptized, and immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

So let's come back again to understanding what this means for Jesus to be baptized, and it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness. Let's understand righteousness, this concept of righteousness, once again.

Righteousness is doing what is right. I have asked my children that various occasions when we've done our family devotions. I've said to them, what is righteousness? And they've now gotten used to this question.

They can answer it correctly and quickly. But the first five letters to righteousness explain to us what righteousness is. R-I-G-H-T. It's right. It's doing what is right. But not just doing what we think is right.

Specifically, it's doing what God says is right. Throughout the Bible, the words righteousness and justice are interchangeable. When we get to Matthew 6, we're soon going to be entering into the Sermon on the Mount.

And when we get there to Matthew 6, Jesus says a verse that you probably memorized when you were very young, when you were in Sunday school. He says there, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto you as well.

There are some translations you will find that say, Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things will be added to you. It's not that there's a variant translation that's going on there, but the words righteous and justice are interchangeable.

God desires what is right, and He will accomplish His righteousness. The act of putting His righteousness into effect and making right that which is wrong is justice. It's the justice of God being enacted upon a wrong and sinful world to bring about righteousness.

So, with that in mind, when we come here to Jesus saying it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness, Jesus saying it is fitting for us to make right that which is wrong. And remember again that when John the Baptist, as we looked at this last week, in chapter 3 verses 1 through 12, when John the Baptist came with the ministry of baptism, his baptism was a ministry of repentance.

It was calling people to repent, and it was preparing them for the king who was to come. For they were gross, sinful, filthy people, unworthy to stand in the presence of the king. And they had to be washed.

And so John comes with this ministry of baptism, a ministry that was reserved for Gentiles when they made a conversion from Gentile to Judaism. They were baptized. Jews didn't get baptized. Gentiles did.

But now here John the Baptist comes to the land of Judah saying you all must be baptized. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make His paths straight. John the Baptist making right that which was wrong. Bringing people back to an understanding of God's word and His holiness and needing to be prepared and right in the presence for the king when he came, the Messiah who was to come.

And so John the Baptist even came preaching righteousness. Jesus Christ has not yet begun His earthly ministry here when He comes to be baptized by John. But even all of this is in preparation for what is to come.

Remember the first words that John the Baptist preached, Matthew 3, 2, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What is the first words that Jesus will preach when we get to chapter 4, verse 17? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

John the Baptist is preparing the way for the king. Jesus is the king who comes proclaiming righteousness. And so as our advocate before the Father, as one who is going to declare us innocent of wrongdoing for those who have faith in Christ, it is necessary for Jesus to go through all the manner and measure of things that we also will go through when we come to Him.

We read in the book of Hebrews that Jesus is a great high priest. And it says, We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. So let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Whenever the priest was about to go into the Holy of Holies to sacrifice on behalf of the people, he would be baptized. He would be drenched with water from head to toe and be clothed in fresh white garments.

Then on Yom Kippur, which was the Day of Atonement, he would go into the Holy of Holies and he would sacrifice and sprinkle the blood on the top of the altar for himself. Then he would come out and he would take off those linen clothes which are now covered with the blood that he had just sprinkled on the altar and he would be baptized and clothed with new white linens and he would go in and do it again.

This time he's sacrificing for all of the priests. Then he would come out and he would take off those garments once again covered in the blood that he had just sprinkled on the ark and he would be baptized a third time.

And he would go in again, this time to sacrifice for the sins of the people. And so just as this was for the priest to do this, and Jesus is our high priest who presents a sacrifice before the Father on our behalf, so here he is baptized before his earthly ministry begins and this to fulfill all righteousness.

Jesus had nothing that he needed to be cleansed of, but we did. And Jesus is our advocate as a minister on our behalf, is baptized for us and doing this to fulfill all righteousness. And Jesus was baptized and the blessing of the Father was demonstrated in the voice of heaven that says, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and the Holy Spirit of God coming to rest upon him as a dove.

And so we see in this way Jesus becoming our representative, even by his baptism. We must be baptized. Jesus was baptized for us. There's another way that we come to understand this baptism. I want to mention this and then I want to explain a little bit further what it means to understand Jesus as our prophet, priest, and king.

But another way that we understand this baptism with John the Baptist is this was a foreshadowing of an even greater baptism that Jesus was going to undergo on our behalf. And that was his death and burial in the ground and then resurrection from the grave.

For like I said, when we're baptized, we remember and we symbolize this as being buried with Christ and risen with Christ. The Apostle Paul saying, I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.

That declaration is even demonstrated in our baptism. But all of this symbolizing, why do we go under the water? Why do we come back up again? Why is this the ritual that we practice as Baptists, as Christians?

And it's because it symbolizes being buried with Christ. I was once dead in my sins and my transgressions. I have been risen to new life in Christ Jesus. And this is foreshadowing the death that Christ is going to undergo for us as an atoning sacrifice and his resurrection from the grave.

For Jesus to say to John, let it be so now, for thus it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness. This is the beginning of his earthly ministry that culminates with his death. And all throughout his earthly ministry, even from his birth, Christ always had the cross in view, for it's why he came.

Jesus said the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Even Christ's baptism here is pointing to that. But as I said, we know Jesus as our prophet. We know him as our priest and as our king.

What does this mean? What does it mean to call Jesus our prophet, priest, and king? Last week, I talked a little bit about the prophet in the Old Testament times and how John the Baptist was that last prophet before the coming of Christ.

So then, what is a prophet in the Old Testament sense, or how does Jesus fulfill that role as a prophet, as we've seen the prophet of God speaking the words of God, even from the times of the Old Testament?

Jesus is anointed by the Spirit of God to proclaim the Word of God. Now, he has this anointing of the Holy Spirit even before he comes to John the Baptist and is baptized in the River Jordan. But it is most certainly symbolized by the descending of the Holy Spirit from heaven on to Christ to show to everybody who was there that this man has the Holy Spirit of God.

He has a filling of the Spirit unlike anyone has ever had a filling of the Spirit, for he himself is God. Now, one of the things we don't often talk about regarding this baptism is that it was witnessed by a lot of people.

This wasn't just Jesus and John standing in the River Jordan. For what was John doing there? He was preaching, and people were coming out to him to hear him preach. And he was baptizing them when he was telling them, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And so it was the case when Jesus came to him. There was a large crowd there to hear John. And here comes Jesus through the crowd into the water, and John is totally perplexed by this. Why are you coming to me?

I need to be cleansed by you. And Jesus teaches him even what had been prophesied from the prophets of old that this would happen, that this would be done to fulfill all righteousness. And John did so to the witness of many who were standing there.

If you go to the book of Acts, you don't have to do this now, I'm just saying hypothetically. If you go to the book of Acts, and you were to look at the process that the disciples underwent in Acts chapter 1 to pick the disciple who was going to replace Judas.

Remember that? Jesus called 12. Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus. He hung himself, and he's gone. He's out of the picture. So now there's 11. But there still needs to be 12. For it is through the apostleship fulfilling a picture that was given in the Old Testament through the 12 tribes of Israel.

So now there needs to be 12 apostles. They need to pick one. They need to pick a guy who's going to fill Judas' role. How do they pick that guy? Well, let's have several guys stand up and deliver sermons, and we'll take the best pastor.

Is that how they picked it? They narrowed it down to two men. And what were the qualifications that those two men shared? They had seen the ministry of Jesus from his baptism all the way to his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension into heaven.

And only two men fit the bill. They were Matthias and was it Justice? Was it the other one? Okay, I'm getting a head nod. I wanted to make sure it wasn't Matthias who is also called Justice, and I was describing the same name to both guys, or two names to one guy.

Anyway, these two men qualified because they had been there from the time of Jesus' baptism. All the rest of the disciples who will be called by Jesus to follow him were here at the baptism of Jesus. They all saw it.

So all of them had been witness to the voice of heaven saying, this is my beloved son. So it was more than just Jesus calling them to follow him, and they're going, oh, okay, we're going to follow this guy.

I don't know who he is. I don't know where he came from. But he said, come follow me, so we're going to go follow him. They knew that this was the one whom John the Baptist proclaimed about, the spotless lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world.

They knew that because of what had been seen and witnessed and spoken about, testified to regarding the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, and hundreds of people could testify to it because hundreds of people were there.

Jesus is our prophet who proclaims the word of God, and he preaches the gospel of God to the people. Same word again that John the Baptist preached, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus preaches when he begins his earthly ministry.

Jesus is the prophet that was foretold by Moses. Deuteronomy 18, there is one who is coming to you who is like me, and you will listen to him. In Acts 3 .22, it is said by Peter who was preaching at Solomon's portico that Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophecy that was made by Moses.

He points specifically to Christ. And then in the book of Hebrews, which I've already read to you from partially, it is proclaimed there that Jesus is the greater Moses. So he is the fulfillment of that prophet who was prophesied to come.

In this way, we know that Jesus is our prophet. He promises the coming kingdom. And unlike many of the nation's leaders at this time, you think of Herod in particular, you even think of Pontius Pilate eventually, Jesus practices what he preaches.

He even as a prophet does what he says. What he tells everybody else to do, he does it. But not so with the Pharisees and the scribes and the other teachers of the law. Jesus said of the Pharisees, when they teach you the law, you must listen to them because they're the ones that have been granted the oracles of God to teach the people of Israel what it is that God has said to his people.

So listen to them when they teach you. But Jesus said, do not do what they do. For they're hypocrites. They say one thing and they do something else. Listen to the words they teach you insofar as what they say comes from the word of God.