Matthew Part 4

Intro

Recap

Matthew 3:7–17 NIV

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” 13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. 16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Prayer

Right out of the gates this morning we see John the Baptist getting after it

All of these people have heard about John the Baptist. like I said before, he was a big deal

That included some of the pharisees and sadducees of that day

So let’s talk about these guys and why John the Baptist was so harsh with them

Pharisees:

The pharisees were known as the religious elite

To even become a pharisee you had to go through rigorous training and studying

These guys would have been very knowledgeable and very spiritual but it was all misplaced. It was all self-driven.

Their name mean “separated ones” and they believed that.

Not only would they separate themselves from gentiles and tax collectors and anyone else they would deem as awful sinners but they even believed that their own Israelite community was not good enough for them

When they went out in public as soon as they could they would go through extensive cleaning and purification in case they may have touched something or someone they deemed as unclean

Everything was external for them. They would go to the major cities and pray in front of as many people as they could

They would wait until the temple was full and everyone was watching before they put their tithe in the buckets

Their spirituality and religion had become a show

Last week we talked about John the Baptist being a herald and how we are called to proclaim the kingdom of God to those around us

But before Christ what we typically do is herald ourselves as kings

These guys were doing the same thing but using religion as the vehicle to get what they wanted

This still happens today

It’s one of the most damaging things to the Church

It’s also the thing that seemed to get Jesus most angry and here John the Baptist.

Sadducees

Now the sadducees were kind of on the other side of the spectrum

They weren’t driven by religion but were rather rationalists

Now they claimed to accept the law of moses as the supreme authority but they were not governed by their religious beliefs

They lived for the present, the here and now. Their goal was to acquire as much as they could

They didn’t believe like the pharisees that their reward was in heaven, but rather that their reward was here on earth

They would have been in charge of the administration and money side of the temple

They would charge people an extreme amount of money to come and perform rituals and sacrifices. They would have been the ones most affected when we see Jesus drive the moneychangers out of the temple in Matt 21

Because of their desire to acquire and the way they lived they were typically very wealthy

They are seen often with the Pharisees but really had nothing in common with them

The only common ground that we really see is that they hated and opposed Jesus

And as different as these two groups were they both put their hope and their trust in themselves. What they could do or accomplish with their own actions and will

And it’s probably because of that commonness that we often see them grouped together

Jesus is not impressed with what you can do

He loves you for who you are and who you were created to be

The moment that we begin to find our hope and trust in ourselves is the moment we find ourselves on the outside looking in

What John is going to address here is that there is only one way into the kingdom of God and it’s not through yourself

Now John confronts them right? He says who has warned you to flee from the coming wrath.

What he is saying is “you aren’t here to truly repent. You’re here to try to learn how to save yourselves.”

God’s kingdom isn’t something you can fake. You may pretend all you want and you may fool a lot of people but you can’t fool the King.

He goes onto imply that there is only one way into the kingdom of God.

Don’t think that you can fake it

Don’t think that your religion will save you

Don’t think that your father or mother’s religion will save you

Don’t think there’s a back door somewhere and that if you do more good deeds than bad than you’ll be let in

There’s only one way and it’s Jesus. No one comes to the kingdom but through Him!

It’s the cross of Jesus Christ that paves the way for sinners like me to enter into the kingdom of God

It’s true repentance, like we talked about last week, that allows us into His kingdom

And we know if we’ve really committed true repentance, because true repentance always produces fruit.

This isn’t a work based salvation ok, but you can’t go from sinner that’s engrossed with self to sinner saved by grace and longing to follow under the kingship of Jesus and not change.

True repentance will always produce fruit. It must. And that’s what John the baptist is saying here.

“You guys are seeking salvation but won’t truly repent and have no fruit to show for it and so you are no better off than what you were before”

Then John offers simultaneously a word of encouragement to true repenters and a word of warning to those who had no fruit of true repentance.

Matthew 3:11–12 NIV

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

There are many different opinions on what is meant by what John the Baptist says here

And the debate is around what he means when he says fire

There are 3 primary ways you could interpret what he means

He could mean a different manifestation of the Holy Spirit

When the Holy Spirit falls at Pentecost Acts 2:3 speaks of it accompanied with tongues of fire and the disciples describe it as appearing to them as fire

He could be speaking of a cleansing fire. There are a couple of OT scriptures that use fire to communicate a sense of cleansing.

But what I believe John is talking about here is ultimate judgement.

The reasons I believe he’s speaking of judgement here is because most of the uses in the NT are referring to it

He just used it in that sense pretty clearly in vs 10 and then uses it in vs 12 to paint a picture of a separation between those in the kingdom of God and those out of it and how those out of it will receive and “unquenchable fire” or judgement.

Then we move into Jesus stepping onto the scene.

So this is the very first time we actually see Jesus in Matthew aside from His birth.

And we see this exchange between Jesus and John.

Jesus comes to John to be baptized and John recognizing who Jesus is responds in a way that any of us would under the same circumstance

“Are you kidding? Who am I to baptize you, you should baptize me!”

So why is Jesus seeking out baptism?

We’ve been talking about this baptism for a couple of weeks now and this is a symbolic act of being dead to sin and alive in Christ

It’s sinners repenting of their sins and being brought to life in Christ

Why would Jesus need that? Has He sinned? Well no! He is without sin. So why?

Well there are a few different reasons. vs. 15 gives us an insight into one. Jesus is being baptized because He is publicly acknowledging God’s claim on him as on others for total consecration of life and holiness of character. He is fulfilling the plan set out by the Father. This is an act of obedience.

Another reason is Jesus is doing it as an example. He is going to urge His followers at the end of His ministry to be baptized and here at the beginning of His, He is baptized as an example.

Lastly, if we are following the theme of kingship which is so apparent in Matthew, this act would be considered the coronation of the King.

Here is where His ministry and work truly begin. Everything before this was introductory and preparatory.

It wasn’t as if Jesus hadn’t been King before this moment but that His earthly kingdom had now begun.

There are 3 central and critical aspects of Jesus’ coronation as King of kings that we can’t miss

We see the baptism of the Son, the anointing of the Spirit, and the confirmation of the Father.

As clearly as in any other passage in Scripture we see here the revelation and working of the Trinity.

Because Jesus is no earthly King and His is no earthly kingdom no man could crown Him, only God.

So we’ve talked about the baptism, let’s talk about the other 2 and then we will wrap up

So, why does the Spirit come? Did He not already possess the Spirit?

Yes. Jesus wasn’t living outside of the trinity before this moment. It’s clear His birth was by the Spirit.

It’s not as if Jesus wasn’t divine and God before this moment

Now there’s a lot that can be said here and we could spend a lot of time discussing exactly what’s going on in this moment but it really boils down to this...

This is the public display of the outpouring of the Spirit working in Jesus by the authority of the Father.

Then we end chapter 3 with vs. 17

Matthew 3:17 NIV

17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

This is a monumental moment, especially for the original audience

Why? What did the voice from heaven mean?

It meant that the age-long silence had ended.

The heavens were no longer silent and the centuries of darkness had now been broken

Because the King of kings stepped onto the scene and He needed no affirmation of man but a standing ovation from the Father

As He looks down and He sees His one and only Son embarking on a journey to save the world

The creator of the universe, God in heaven looks down and says this is Him. This is my son.

Jesus is King!

Jesus is king! So what that means is as we continue our study in Matthew if we want to understand the kingdom and we want to be a part of the kingdom we need to pay close attention to the King

We need to give Him our respect, our worship, our time, our thoughts. We need to study and meditate on what the King does and says.

The more we know about King Jesus the more we will know about the kingdom and the more we know about the kingdom the more we can make sense of everything else