Obedient to the Spirit (Matthew 3, Mark 1:1-11, Luke 3:1-22) |Adult Sunday School

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I am so thankful for all of you. Our first snowstorm of the year, make it to Sunday school.
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So we'll get started here in just a second. If you'd like, go ahead and open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter three, because that's where we will be this morning.
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In the gospels, we'll begin with a word of prayer here before we get started.
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Our heavenly father, we rejoice today in the unchanging truth of your word. Our delight day and night is in meditating on the word and on the person and the revelation of your son,
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Jesus Christ. As we gaze at him this morning, may we see you. May we be comforted, encouraged, strengthened, challenged and equipped for obedience.
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And we pray this in the name of your son, Jesus, amen. Okay, well, welcome back to week six.
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We are a month and a half into this series, halfway through, and we are back to the
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New Testament today after a two week respite in the Old Testament where we spent significant amount of time in the book of Isaiah.
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We looked at Isaiah 7, 9, 11, and then last week we spent time in the two suffering servant songs, the first two of the four,
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Isaiah chapter 42 and 49. And we did that for a reason. Much of that Old Testament scripture is the undercurrent of the early gospels, right?
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You kinda have to have that in your head and in your heart to be able to make sense of what happens when you suddenly get dumped right into the deep end of the historical and spiritual context of Jesus' time in the
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New Testament. And so we are delighting in the reality that we were doing what Jesus was doing in the time period between when we left off in Luke 2 when
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Jesus was 12, and when we find him again here in Luke 3, Matthew 3, Mark 1, at the age of 30, those 18 years of silence, we know that at least one of the most important things he was doing was studying the book of Isaiah and the
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Old Testament at large. So we pick back up again this morning, diving right into the context and the account of Jesus' baptism.
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And we're gonna be looking at that in three of the gospel passages together this morning. I want you to ask yourself a question this morning as we get started.
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Would you describe yourself as an obedient person? Now, obedience has lots of layers, doesn't it?
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We know that it has a surface layer that you can see on the outside. So sometimes it's easy for us to classify ourselves or others as obedient or disobedient, because all you have to do is look at the outside.
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But sometimes the outside can be a little deceiving and you miss the layer, the second layer, right?
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The do I want to obey this? And am I doing it right away, right?
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Sometimes we do the right thing with the right attitude, but not right away at the time that we were intended to do so.
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And as I look back at my 45 years of life, I can reflect on how
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God has transformed me personally from a life of disobedience to a life that is increasingly characterized by obedience.
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But looking back sobers me as I recognize that apart from the enablement of the spirit,
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I was, and still am today, incapable of obedience apart from his good work in me.
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My obedience, if you looked at me prior to salvation, was best characterized by the heart motivation of selfish pride, or at best, the fear of the consequences that came from disobedience.
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It was only after God reached down into my heart and saved me and placed me into his son,
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Jesus, that I was able to begin experiencing true obedience, the obedience that is the kind that you see that springs out of a joyful submission, a joyful heart attitude, hopefully a first time right away joyful heart attitude that is evidence of the
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Holy Spirit leading you through the word into greater and greater steps of obedience.
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And it is this kind of obedience that we all desire. We all know we need it.
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We all want it desperately. And thus, we turn our attention today back to the gospels to read how
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Jesus, our great high priest, demonstrates obedience and enables us to obey through him and through the
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Holy Spirit. So the title of our lesson together this morning is Obedient to the
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Spirit. And we will spend some time, as I said, in Mark chapter three, or Mark chapter one,
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Matthew three, and Luke three. And this morning, I want you to see two significant episodes in Jesus' life that demonstrate his complete obedience to the
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Spirit so that we will learn how to obey like he did. So we're gonna focus in on two significant episodes that occur in Jesus' life as described in the early gospels that demonstrate how completely he obeyed the
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Spirit so that we may learn how to obey like Jesus did. So look at your
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Bibles at Matthew chapter three. The first episode we're gonna look at is that Jesus heeded the call of John the
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Baptist. Jesus heeded the call of his cousin, John the
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Baptist. And we're gonna read all three of these gospel accounts together. We're gonna do all three of them and then settle down in Luke and start working our way through them.
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So let's start in Matthew chapter three, and we'll read from verse one all the way through verse 15 of Matthew. "'Now in those days,
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John the Baptist came, "'preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, "'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, "'for this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, "'when he said, "'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, "'make ready the way of the
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Lord, make his paths straight.' Now John himself had a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey.
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Then Jerusalem was going out to him and all Judea and all the district around the Jordan and they were being baptized by him in the
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Jordan River as they confessed their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "'You brood of vipers, "'who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
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"'Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance "'and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, "'We have
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Abraham for our father, "'for I say to you that from these stones, "'God is able to raise up children to Abraham.
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"'The axe is already laid at the root of the trees, "'therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit "'is cut down and thrown into the fire.
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"'As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, "'but he who is coming after me is mightier than I "'and
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I am not fit to remove his sandals. "'He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
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"'His winnowing fork is in his hand "'and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor "'and he will gather his wheat into the barn, "'but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.'
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"'Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan, "'coming to John to be baptized by him. "'But
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John tried to prevent him saying, "'I have need to be baptized by you and do you come to me?'
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"'But Jesus answering said to him, "'Permit it at this time, for in this way "'it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.'
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"'Then he permitted him.'" Turn to Mark 1, that's the longest section we'll read.
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Mark is, as he always is, much more concise. In his description of this, we'll read from the beginning part of Mark here, verses one through nine.
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Mark dives right in. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, behold,
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I send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the
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Lord, make his paths straight. John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
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And all the country of Judea was going out to him and all the people of Jerusalem. And they were being baptized by him in the
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Jordan River, confessing their sins. John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist.
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And his diet was locusts and wild honey. And he was preaching and saying, after me one is coming who is mightier than I.
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And I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the
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Holy Spirit. In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the
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Jordan. And then over to Luke three, and we'll just read the first six verses of Luke three together, verses one through six.
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Now in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Herod was
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Tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip was Tetrarch of the region of Iteria and Trachonitis.
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And Lysanias was Tetrarch of Abilene. In the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.
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And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
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As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the
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Lord, make his paths straight. Every ravine will be filled and every mountain and hill will be brought low.
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The crooked will become straight and the rough roads smooth and all flesh will see the salvation of God.
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Now we left off in Luke 2 52 with the statement, Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.
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And we encounter this silent gap in his revelation where we have to kind of guess a little bit at what happens because it's not recorded for us here.
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We know three things for sure. Jesus became a carpenter and learned the skill of his father.
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We know from Luke chapter three or four, excuse me, that he consistently attended synagogue in his local hometown of Nazareth.
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And we know from that same chapter that he had a very good knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures.
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He could quote them, he could go directly to specific passages and use them. I'll quote for you here from Gerald Hawthorne.
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He says, Luke's glimpses do imply, however, that in fact, the Holy Spirit was continuously at work in every phase of Jesus' life, infusing him with wisdom and keeping with his years, pervading all his imagining, suggesting all his decisions, guiding him in the ways of God, providing him with spiritual resources to overcome evil, granting him insight on certain occasions into the meaning of his own existence and destiny and so on.
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So we hit here the call of Jesus, the call of Jesus to enter into public ministry.
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And his baptism and this call coupled together, these two episodes, they mark a definitive transition point in his life that speaks to the genuine nature of his humanity.
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After all, God does not change, but humans do experience change.
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And this transition point is one that we have to speculate a little bit about it. We don't know for sure whether Jesus anticipated it, knew the day, knew the year of this, or possibly he had to discern this through the
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Holy Spirit and wait and watch for the time and the moment when this transition would occur, where he would leave behind his life as a
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Galilean carpenter and transition to a tour of proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom that would occur over the next three years.
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Is it possible, think with me here, that Jesus is working in Nazareth and he makes the decision,
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I'm gonna go travel down to Judea to be baptized by John outside of the
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Jordan River. Again, remember we talked about this, it's probably about the distance of walking to Spokane and back if you were to travel that.
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But is it possible that when he left, he was obeying the Father through the Spirit without a full knowledge of whether or not he was coming back or not?
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Just to put it in the practical, did he leave a sign on his carpentry business that said, I'll be back in three weeks?
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We don't know. The gospels don't tell us whether Jesus knew, but what we do know is that this time was initiated not by Jesus, but by John and by the call of the word of God through John.
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Look back at Luke 3 .3. It says, and he, that's John, came into all the district around the
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Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
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John, Jesus' cousin, begins preaching. Matthew 3 told us what he was preaching. He was saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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Now, again, think back. This is in the days before email, text messages, social media, so the news of this preaching down in the southern part of the kingdom had to travel back up to Galilee.
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Jesus had to find out about John's ministry, and then he had to make the decision to go himself down to Judea.
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What did Jesus know about John up until this point? Well, I can assume that his mother,
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Mary, probably informed him a lot about John's conception and the promises of the angel
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Gabriel to his parents about his ministry, but we can also speculate that Jesus, being a very spirit -led student of the
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Old Testament, would have identified the necessity of John's ministry in the
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Old Testament. We know later on in his ministry that he absolutely calls the Jewish people around him out for not recognizing the significance of John and his ministry.
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So John begins preaching, and in Luke 3, it says, as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, and the quote here comes from Isaiah 40.
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Luke gives us the fullest version of the quote, whereas Matthew and Mark only take one verse of it, but it says, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make ready the way of the
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Lord. Make his paths straight. Every ravine will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be brought low.
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The crooked will become straight, and the rough road smooth, and all flesh will see the salvation of God.
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John's message carried an urgency with it. There was an act now aspect of it.
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He was aware through the Holy Spirit that he was fulfilling the words of not just Isaiah, but of Malachi and the other prophets that were given to the nation of Israel 400 plus years before, but which the nation had been expectantly waiting.
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How do we know that the nation had been waiting for this fulfillment? Well, look at Luke 3 .15.
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It says, now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John as to whether he was the
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Christ, we can give the nation of Israel credit that they had paid attention to their
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Old Testament scriptures, and they knew Messiah will come, and when he comes, he's going to come in the fulfillment of Isaiah 40, and Malachi, and many of those scripture passages that they read every single
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Sabbath. They knew that John was preaching a message that demanded a response, and they went out to him in droves, right?
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It says that they went out to him to be baptized, confessing their sins.
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The people of Israel needed to respond in national repentance to this message.
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This is individual, but more than individual. This is a national corporate repentance that was being proclaimed by John.
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Now, turn back with me to Mark 1 .5. We just need to see something here. Mark 1 .5
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says, and all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem, and they were being baptized by him in the
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Jordan River, confessing their sins. The key word that I wanted to get to there was this repeated usage of this all.
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Mark is not in hyperbole here. He's indicating that there is a national response to this.
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There is tremendous fervor here as they go out. So we have to ask ourselves the question, why did
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Jesus choose to go be baptized by John? Why did
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Jesus need to be baptized in the first place? He has no sin to confess.
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So if all the people are going out confessing their sin, why is Jesus joining them in that endeavor?
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So let's go back to Matthew. Matthew records the conversation for us in chapter three between Jesus and John, and I think the answer to this question lies in Jesus' conversation with John.
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We're gonna look at Matthew 3, verses 14 and 15. It says, but John tried to prevent him, saying,
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I have need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? But Jesus answering said to him, permit it at this time, for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.
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That verse has been in my head and my heart this whole week as I have been reflecting on this passage.
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Jesus so succinctly and so clearly answers John and gives him more than he ever needed to answer the question of why should you allow me to be baptized today?
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Permit it at this time, for it is in this way it is for fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.
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Jesus had a desire to fulfill all righteousness, and this ties back to his increasing awareness by the spirit that his messianic role was to bring righteousness, both externally and internally in his people, in his people
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Israel. Just listen again to what we heard last week when we studied Isaiah 49, verses five through six.
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Isaiah says, and now says the Lord who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring
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Jacob back to him, so that Israel might be gathered to him. For I am honored in the sight of the
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Lord and my God is my strength. He says, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel.
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I will also make you a light to the nation so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
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Jesus, by studying that passage, could equate the reality that his role as the suffering servant, the
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Messiah, was to bring all Israel back to God in righteousness.
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Listen to Isaiah 59, 21. As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the
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Lord, my spirit, which is upon you, and my words, which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, says the
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Lord, from now and forever. God the Father is going to put his spirit upon the
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Son, and from that point forward, the words that come out of his mouth will never go back. They will continue on.
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So this transitional moment is something that Jesus could have anticipated. He knew that the prophets spoke of a day when the spirit would call out to all of the people of Israel, and they would respond, because the spirit would be at work in them.
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But this doesn't fully answer the question, why did Jesus choose to be baptized?
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Baptism is tied to cleansing. What does Jesus need to be cleansed of?
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He has not sinned, and he will not sin. Well, I want you to think about it this way.
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When Jesus heard the message of John, it was a real human being who heard it.
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He's a human carpenter who lives in Galilee as a righteous Jew, and he heard the call of the mouth, from the mouth of a prophet, proclaiming that national
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Israel, everybody needs to go and be baptized and repent. Luke three, verse two, says the word of God came to John.
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This is not just John. Jesus is listening to the word of God, and his response is one motivated by an obedience to God's word.
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Listen to Ezekiel 36, 25 through 27. God says, then
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I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.
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Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
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I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances.
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I believe that Jesus' decision to leave Nazareth, to leave behind his old life and to walk down to Judea to be baptized by John is a spirit -filled response of obedience to the word of God in the entire
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Old Testament and the further revelation that God is providing right now through John the
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Baptist. Jesus recognized this is the spirit calling to all of Israel and therefore
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I must go. In his humanity, Jesus demonstrates the character that all men are called to demonstrate, unquestioning obedience to God's word through the power of the spirit.
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Jesus had a firm commitment, a firm desire to be baptized as an expression of his obedience and a desire to see all
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Israel obey right there with him. Right, it's not just him. He wants to obey with the nation.
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He wants to see everybody around him obey. And he held
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John's authority as a spirit -filled prophet in the highest of regards. If he disobeys, everybody else can say, he's not obeying,
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I'm not gonna obey either. John's message must be heeded by all of Israel because it is
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God's message to all Israel. Jesus' act of baptism was not an expression of repentance for personal sin, but it is an expression of repentance for national sin.
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Think back to the words of Daniel. I'll just read it for you. Chapter nine, verses four through seven.
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When Daniel in exile prays, he says, I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed and said, alas,
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O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from your commandments and ordinances.
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Moreover, we have not listened to your servants, the prophets who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers, and all the people of the land.
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Righteousness belongs to you, O Lord, but to us, open shame. As it is this day to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all
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Israel, those who are nearby and those who are far away and all the countries to which you have driven them because of their unfaithful deeds, which they have committed against you.
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Daniel did not confess merely on behalf of his own personal sin, but he confessed a corporate sin, the sin of the entire nation.
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Similarly, Jesus here expresses the firm resolve that the right thing for him or any
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Jewish person to do in his day is to obey the call of God through John to be baptized and fulfill all righteousness.
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So let's ponder some of the implications of this first significant episode in Jesus' life here.
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We, like Jesus, are accountable to respond in obedience to the word of God throughout the
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Old and New Testament. That's where we find our instruction, and when we find it, we must obey it.
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Right away, no questions asked. Now, that requires of us that we must properly interpret
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God's prophetic revelation, particularly that revelation that comes to us in the
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Old Testament about the kingdom, about the restoration and repentance of national
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Israel and how the new covenant joins us together through Christ into the people of God alongside of national
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Israel. We have to get our minds around that. We can't neglect that. That's critical to Jesus' obedience, and it's critical to our obedience today.
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And when we hear the word of God, we know that the Spirit is working to bring believers, into believers to bring about obedience.
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That's what the Spirit does. It's how it worked in Jesus, and it's how it works in us today.
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Good spot for questions or comments as they've come to your mind. Peter? I love the question.
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I'll repeat it for those who might need to hear it or the recording. Peter's asking, when you make the statement or suggest that Jesus had limited knowledge, that He didn't know everything and that He has to react, think, respond based upon new information that's being presented to them, does that cause you strain or struggle with the reality that He's fully
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God and fully man? And I answer the question, yes. It makes me struggle right there with you, brother.
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And this is exactly what I wanted us to do, is to come to God's word, never forsaking the reality that He is the
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God man. He is fully God. He never relinquishes being fully God, but yet He takes upon Himself the form of a bond servant.
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He chooses to give us a full humanity that we can look at and say, this is how a human being responds to God's word.
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And I suggest that the answer to our mutual struggle, how is it that He is described in Luke as increasing in knowledge, which suggests that there's more knowledge being added to a mind that is human and yet a person that is both
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God and man, that the humanity has to increase in knowledge. Yeah, it's a good question, good possibility, but I think that the scriptures are clear that Jesus Himself acknowledged that He, at points, did not know things, right?
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He tells us He does not know the day or time that the Father would... I got another comment over here.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I love the fact that we're all together straining into this mystery. This is exactly what we should be doing.
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It's tough. Jason, yeah.
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Thank you, Jason, that's a good observation. If you didn't hear it, he talks about how this is explained to us in a little bit more detail in Philippians 2.
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Jesus empties Himself, not giving up the power, but choosing not to exercise it, not grasping hold of it.
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Okay, so let's ask ourselves a couple of key questions here before we look at our second point. So I want you to think to yourself this week as you're walking through your daily life, right?
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When you hear God's word, do you have a firm resolve to obey it?
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Is that what characterizes you as a spirit -filled believer? And are you aware at that time of the
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Spirit at work in you, helping you to push past your initial desire to disobey or to delay obedience?
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Are you aware that the Spirit is constantly at work, taking the word and applying it to you in a way that strengthens you to be ready to obey consistently?
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And more importantly, are you waiting expectantly for the next step in God's plan?
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What I don't want to miss here is that Jesus was waiting expectantly because He knew that God was going to bring
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His word to pass. Are you waiting with that same expectation that what comes next has to come next because God has promised it and therefore you must be ready to act in light of His promises?
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So we looked at the first episode, the first significant episode in Jesus' life that demonstrated His complete obedience to the
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Spirit is that He heeded the call of John the Baptist to be baptized.
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Secondly, we're going to look again, go back to Luke 3 with me here. We're going to be looking at Jesus' baptism, preparing
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Him for His ministry of obedience. Jesus heeded the call of John and now
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He is baptized as a preparation for a ministry of obedience.
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For the sake of time, let's just read Luke 3, verses 21 and 22. It says, now when all the people were baptized,
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Jesus was also baptized. And while He was praying, heaven was open and the
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Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came out of heaven.
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You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased. Now we go right over little phrases here in this very quick two verses.
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So we're just going to go back and meditate on a couple of them. Look at 21. It says, while He was praying.
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Now, right away, this phrase calls us back to our understanding of the humanity of Christ.
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We don't know what He was praying, but as always, prayer demonstrates that Jesus lived
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His human life in relationship with God the Father. He found it not just helpful to pray,
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He found it necessary to pray to God the Father. And I think this is the
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Spirit at work in Him. Jesus does not shy away from acts of dependence upon His heavenly
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Father. And His prayer here is almost immediately efficacious.
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Look at Luke 3 .22. It says, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove.
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And a voice came out of heaven. You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased.
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Gerald Hawthorne says, if His experience in Jerusalem at the age of 12 was such an ecstatic experience that He lost track of time and parents, if that incident of sitting among the learned teachers and listening to the scriptures expounded was so rapturous, that even then
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He began to see that He stood in unique relationship to God as a
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Son to the Father. How much more ecstatic and rapturous might this event of His baptism be?
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Which was the result of His own deliberate choice to heed the call of God, to go
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God's way. So listen, I'm just gonna read for you Matthew 3 .16.
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It says, and He, in Matthew 16, it's a singular pronoun there.
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He, singular, saw the Spirit of God descending. And then Mark 1 .10
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tells us that He saw the heavens opened. The word suggests literally being ripped or torn apart, an act of cosmological significance.
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Heavens are torn apart. Now this language is not new to the New Testament. This is in the
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Old Testament. If you listen to Isaiah 64 .10, it says, oh, that you would rend or tear apart the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence.
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Listen to Malachi 3 .10. It says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house and test me now in this, says the
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Lord of hosts. If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.
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When heaven opens, you know it. And blessings come pouring down from God the
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Father. So here is Jesus at His baptism and He prays to God the
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Father. And what happens? The heavens are ripped open and the Holy Spirit comes down upon Him.
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And the Father says to Him, you are my beloved Son. And you,
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I take great delight. The voice of God confirms in Jesus the understanding of His relationship and His role as God the
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Son and as the servant, the suffering servant who is going to be the King to bring salvation and righteousness and justice to all of His people.
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Now, this combination of the Father's voice along with the indwelling presence of the Spirit, which would continue with Him is what is going to equip
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Him for the work of obedience that comes forward here. An interesting question that I don't have time to trace down this morning, but maybe you do, is as Jesus was getting ready to travel down to Judea to be baptized, did
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He know that He was going to encounter a whole bunch of difficulty from that point forward? Did He kind of know from the
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Old Testament that the suffering servant was going to encounter rejection and opposition? And so is at this point, is
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He need to hear the Father and the Son or Father and the Spirit coming to Him and say, hey, you're going to need to obey here, but we're going to be right here with you to help you.
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We read a couple of these passages last week, so I'm just going to refresh your memory. Isaiah 42, one says, behold, my servant, whom
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I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights, I have put my
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Spirit upon Him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. And just a couple of weeks ago,
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Jim preached really well for us out of Psalm 2, verses seven and eight. And therefore this should be ringing in your head.
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I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, you are my son.
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Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession.
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You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware. The concept of this suffering servant who is also the
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King, the anointed one are joined together in this statement. You are my son.
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This is my beloved son. This Spirit indwelling
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Him, resting upon Him is also in fulfillment of what we also studied two weeks ago in Isaiah 11, one through five, where it says, then a shoot will spring forth from the stem of Jesse and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
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The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him. The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the
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Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And He will delight in the fear of the
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Lord. And He will not judge by what His eyes see nor make a decision by what His ears hear. But with righteousness,
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He will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth. And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and with the breath of His lips,
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He will slay the wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins and faithfulness, the belt about His waist.
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Look back with me at Luke 3, 22. It says,
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God says to him, you are my beloved son. In you,
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I am well pleased. Now, we need to think here a little bit.
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The voice that comes to us from the Father here is absolutely heard by Jesus.
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We don't know whether it was heard by those around or not. The text doesn't tell us whether John or anyone else.
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But we know that Jesus needed to experience the impact of these words. The phrase, the
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Holy Spirit says, the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him, that little Greek preposition, upon, indicates an into rather than simply an on or upon.
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It's not like it's a temporary kind of the Holy Spirit's on or upon you right now, it's the Holy Spirit is into.
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And when John testifies later for us in the Apostle John verses chapter one, verse 32, he says,
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I have seen the Spirit descending or coming down as a dove out of heaven and He remained upon Him.
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You transition from a participle, coming down, suggesting a transitory experience to a finite verb, remain or dwell.
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So this is the Spirit coming into Jesus and remaining, a feeling of the
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Spirit. The Spirit is here to stay. And now, as we think about this phrase here that we hear from God the
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Father when He says, ah, you are my beloved Son and you I am well pleased,
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He's, that verb phrase is looking back at what came before, what produced that pleasing expression in God's life.
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He's looking back at Jesus' whole life and saying everything up until this point, all of your preparation, all of your obedience to me is declared acceptable.
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God the Father is anointing the Son to be
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His King, His gospel proclamation minister to the nation, to be the obedient Son that the nation of Israel refused to be.
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So let's pause there and if there are any questions before we finish, I have a couple of thoughts for you, but we should interact with that section.
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Oh, thank you. Yes, yes, you nailed it.
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He's asking, is it at this time then, am I saying that this is the moment where Jesus comes to the fullest realization of His messianic role and His ministry?
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I think yes. I think Luke four is gonna continue this episode forward because it's kind of like a seamless episode.
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What comes next here and what we'll look at next week is Jesus is driven or led out into the wilderness by the
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Spirit to be further tested and that testing is going to produce a determination to obey that we see here and then
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Jesus comes back and goes back to His hometown, to Nazareth, goes into the synagogue and proclaims and says,
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Isaiah 61 .1, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your presence and He knows at that point the
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Spirit has changed His direction, He's off in a new direction. That's where we have to stop and say, what do we know and what we don't know, but I think that yes,
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He is given by God the Father a stamp of approval at this point, which gives Him the culmination of all of that learning up until this point.
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It's a great question. Joe, good way to think about it.
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Yes, the question is not exhausting it, it's really revealing how little we can understand it in its fullness, but yet how much
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God has given to us that we can understand. Okay, so let's bring this to a close here.
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We've looked at two significant episodes, Jesus' call to be baptized and His baptism itself.
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His baptism prepares Him for a ministry of obedience. So as we reflect on this, I want you to just go back to the beginning and think about some basic truths.
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Jesus was a man who needed to respond to the Father's will from beginning to the end of His life.
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His obedience on the cross is not His first step of obedience, it's a culmination of many steps of obedience.
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Jesus studied the Old Testament, and He was intimately familiar with the writings of the prophets, sections that we often take for granted in our personal walk with Him.
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When Jesus heard the words of John the Baptist, He recognized them as the word of God, and He responded in obedient faith by leaving
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Nazareth to be conformed to the pattern of obedience that God had given Him in the
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Old Testament. He recognized that submission to God is part of His calling as the suffering servant, to bring the ministry of the kingdom of God and to experience the rejection and the rebellion of those who oppose righteousness.
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Jesus is given this stamp of approval by God the Father at His baptism that testifies to His role as the
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Messiah and how His life to this point has been lived in a manner that is described as well -pleasing to the
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Father. And from this point, Jesus will transition into His earthly ministry and dwelt permanently by the presence and the power of the
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Spirit. So how does this apply to us today? What do we do with this?
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Well, we can recognize that we must always be ready, always be ready to respond to God's will for us.
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And we must seek it out, not just in the New Testament, but the
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Old Testament. We should take this as a challenge, that we should delight in studying our
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Old Testaments. Jesus loved it, and so can we. And we must understand that Jesus' submission to God the
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Father is the basis for our obedience. This is not
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God holding out and saying, well, if your older brother can do it, so can you. No, He's saying, your brother did it, and I joined you together in Him.
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It's His obedience that I will credit as righteousness, not yours, but your obedience from this point forward is
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His obedience through the power of my Spirit. Jesus depended daily upon that Spirit, and so can we.
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Let's close in a word of prayer. Our Father, we thank
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You for the rich truth You have provided us today. Our hearts are just overflowing with the richness of Your revelation in Your Son, Jesus.
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We are determined to obey as He did. We pray that You would strengthen us in our commitment and provide us with Your powerful
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Holy Spirit to fill us. May we, as a body, grow together in unity and love as we continue to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom to the nations.