This sermon was preached to Grace Church Guildford on 27 March 2022. The full video recording of the service can be found below along with the transcript.
Are you a perfectionist? Are you able to find a flaw in everything you do? Do you always have a niggling feeling that you haven’t quite done enough? Have fallen just short once again? Even if you don’t consider yourself a perfectionist, do you ever lie awake at night, thinking over all you have done that day, and find yourself filled with regret: Was what I said to that sister at church OK? Should I have taken that opportunity at work? Did I do enough to show them I really care? For some of you perhaps, your regrets arise less from the present and more from past. Rather than being battered by waves of daily worries, you are instead drowned by fears that have built up over many years. You look back over your life and wonder: Why didn’t I try harder at school? Why did I care so much about what my friends thought? Would my life have been better if I had married someone else? Might my children have become Christians if I had only spoken more of Jesus? For many of us, that expression ‘nobody is perfect’ seems rather redundant. For our minds regularly remind us of our many mistakes and misgivings. Our hearts are restless with regrets, overwhelmed by worries about past failures, mindful of our own imperfections.
Nobody is perfect. And yet our passage this evening presents us with one who is! A person whose life was pleasing in every way, from beginning to end. One who knew no regret, never lay awake at night wondering if he had done the right thing. Someone who had no flaws, whose life couldn’t be improved in even the smallest of ways. Two weeks ago, we considered the baptism of John in 3:1-12. Tonight, we continue in 3:13 by considering the baptism of that perfect person, the baptism of Jesus. That is our text and yet did you notice his actual baptism is barely mentioned? There is a fleeting reference to it at the start of 3:16, "when Jesus was baptised". But the passage really focuses on what took place immediately before and then after this event. Our passage splits into those two parts: (1) The Humble Servant (3:13-15) – before the baptism we hear of Jesus coming to the Jordan to speak with and by baptised by John; (2) The Heavenly Son (3:16-17) – after the baptism, we hear of its remarkable result, as heaven opens, the Spirit descends and the Father speaks about his Son. Let us consider these two portions together.
1. THE HUMBLE SERVANT – In Jesus, the deficient become perfect (3:13-15)
Our passage begins with a simple sentence in 3:13: "Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John." However, if you weren’t with us a few weeks ago, or have simply forgotten what we looked at, you will struggle to see the strangeness of this sentence. That first word, ‘then’ places it in a context. When is it that Jesus comes? It is after all we read in 3:1-12 has happened, it is ‘then’ that Jesus comes. Two weeks ago, we thought about 3:1-12 and seen there John the Baptist being sent as a prophet to prepare God’s people. He came crying in the wilderness because the Lord, King of Creation, Ruler of Heaven, was coming to confront the nation. He told them prepare themselves for this by repenting of their sins. And we see how pressing such preparation was. In 3:7 we read that the coming of this Lord means the ‘coming of wrath’. In 3:10-12, we are told when he comes, he would be far greater and more powerful than John. He would not merely baptise his people in water, but he would baptise, that is immerse them in fire. For those who failed to repent this meant being thrown into "unquenchable fire", that is fire that is forever, a flame that is never finished. In 3:1-12 John warns the King and Judge is coming.
And so Matthew continues in 3:13, "Then Jesus came...". It seems clear he meant for Jesus to be seen as the king John was preparing us for. And yet we see that his coming is completely different to what we expected. We were expecting the sudden storm of God’s wrath, but we get the sweet sunshine of Jesus Christ instead. We are told he comes to the Jordan not to baptise but to be baptised. Rather than immerse people himself in fire, as John said, he comes so that he can be immersed in water. In 3:11, John told us this coming king would be so much greater than him, that he was not worthy to even hold his sandals, a job for the lowest of slaves. And yet, when Jesus comes, he comes to ask John not merely to carry his sandals, but to take his whole body in his hands and baptise him in the river, just like he has done for every commoner who came to him from the crowds. You can sense the shock in John response in 3:14. He seems rather puzzled by it all and so tries to hold Jesus back. In 3:7, John prevented the religious leaders from being baptised because they were not worthy, here he prevents Jesus because he is too worthy. The Pharisees would not be humbled. Jesus should not be humbled. The king clambering down the side of a river to be baptised like a sinner is too scandalous for John to endure. And yet, this is exactly why Jesus came.
Like John, we should be shocked at the humility of our Saviour. And yet, this is what we have seen throughout Matthew so far. Born in a stable in Bethlehem. Fled as a refugee to Egypt. Raised in the backsticks of Nazareth. The story of our lowly lord continues here in chapter 3. How is it that Jesus decides to launch his ministry, declare his arrival? He begins here baptised in a river among like an ordinary sinner. Perhaps here we get a glimpse of how his ministry will end in Matthew 27, where he dies on a cross between thieves. From first to the last, Jesus stands with sinners. Instead of coming against us, our king came among us. Rather than being over us, our lord became one of us. At this time, he did not come to judge the world, but to join with it, so save many from wrath to come. As one dear brother reminded our fellowship group this week, the humility of Jesus is not just a marvel for us to adore, it is a model for us to act on. If Jesus willingly stooped from heaven to serve on earth, how could we ever think that someone or something is too far beneath us? Whether quietly serving in the background of church, showing interest in subordinates at work, or reaching out to those on the fringes of your family or outskirts of our society: You will never meet a human who is too humiliating for you to help. You will never find a task that is too humble for you to handle. Brothers and sisters, when a chance to serve comes your way, it is right for you to consider if it is a wise investment, a good stewardship of what your master has given. Even Jesus did not have unlimited time and energy on earth. Our service must be strategic, each of us will give account for how we invest ourselves. Yet asking if something is profitable is not the same as asking if it is prestigious or prominent enough. Such considerations should never characterise us. Jesus was a humble servant. We should be too.
And yet we need to see that there is more than humility going on here. This isn’t merely a CEO coming alongside the cleaners in a business, or a parent with a prestigious job deciding to spend the party sitting at the kids table. As marvellous as it is to think of the Lord of Heaven stooping to serve us on earth, there is something even more remarkable than this. It is not just his humility that drives Jesus’ decision to be baptised. It is also his holiness. Did you see that in 3:15? He comes to Jordan not simply to be humble, but to be obedient. That is the reason he gives to John, who only consents when Jesus explains in 3:15: "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness." Do you find that surprising? You should! Two weeks ago, we said baptism is a symbol, a sign for those who have confessed their sins and sought forgiveness from God. This immersion under water symbolises their sins being washed away, their fresh start, new life. However, we shall see that Scripture says Jesus was perfect in every way, had no sins to repent of. Why then did he need to get baptised? What would such a baptism show if he had no sins to wash away? Perhaps John was right to refuse to baptise him after all!
In 3:15, Jesus explains rather than his baptism being a baptism of repentance, it was a baptism for righteousness. For Jesus, it is not a sign of sins being forgiven, but requirements being fulfilled. He explains he must be baptised to fulfil (complete, accomplish) all righteousness (God’s requirements). What are these requirements? I think they are like those we have already seen in Matthew 1-2, where Jesus fulfilled the prophetic patterns plotted out for him in the Old Testament: his birth in Bethlehem, flight to Egypt, life in Nazareth. In Isaiah 42, we seen another pattern plotted out for him. It spoke of a servant on whom God would put his Spirit and in whom God would be pleased. This is surely fulfilled here in 3:16-17 where the Spirit descends on Jesus and the Father proclaims his pleasure. By this, Jesus is identified as Isaiah’s servant, the Messiah who is sent to save the world. And yet, if you read on in Isaiah you see that much more is said about this servant. For example, later we are told in 53:12 that he is to be "numbered with the transgressors". That there was an expectation this one coming to save us would stand alongside us, identify with us. And so it was proper for him to not only finish his Messianic mission on a cross between thieves, but begin it here by being baptised among sinners. For Christians, baptism shows our sins being taken from us, for Christ, baptism shows him standing alongside us, so that he could carry those sins away.
Jesus was baptised because he was perfectly obedient. He was determined to "fulfil all righteousness", keep all of God’s requirements. Not one of God’s laws was to be overlooked. As I was preparing for this message, the true scale and scope of this hit me again. As Christians, we are used to the Bible saying things like Jesus "knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21) or he was "without sin." (Hebrews 4:15). And yet, we forget how astonishing this really is when they are applied to everyday life. It of course means that Jesus never told a lie, stole a lustful glance, or spoke an angry word. Yet the true scope of his sinlessness goes far beyond even this. It is not just that he never did anything wrong, but that he always did what was right. And more than this, he always did it in the right way at the right time. Jesus never spoke words that should have been kinder or gentler; his heart never had even a hint of jealousy or envy or pride; he never did anything with mixed motives. It is not just that he never ungrateful, it is that he always had the perfect amount of gratefulness. Jesus lived the perfect life. He fulfilled all righteousness. Not a single part of it could be improved, not even by a perfectionist. He lived exactly how God wants us to live.
If you are not a Christian this evening, do you see the difference between your life and Jesus’? His motives were spotless, his words were flawless, his deeds were faultless. He was perfect. And that is exactly what God requires of each of us. Later in 5:48, Jesus summarises God’s law in a very simple sentence: "Be perfect...as your heavenly Father is perfect." Have you done that? Have you lived the perfect life? As we thought at the start of our service, none of us are perfect. And so that means none of us have kept God requirements. We are flawed, blemished, deficient. That is what the Bible means when it says we are sinners: we fall short of God’s standards, have broken his commandments. And as a result, we deserve God’s judgement, the storm of his coming wrath. And yet, the good news of Christianity, the Gospel, is that God sent his perfect Son to save all those who will trust in him. He does this by dying in the place of his people on the cross, taking their punishment, receiving God’s wrath that they deserved. Jesus takes on the sin of all who trust in him, and yet he does even more than that! For he not only gets our punishment, but the Bible teaches that he gives us his perfection. Jesus not only died in the place of those who believe in him, but he lived in their place as well. He fulfilled all righteousness, kept all the requirements of God’s laws, and then takes that righteousness and gives it to all who trust in him. As Paul explains in Romans 5:19 "For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous." In Jesus, the deficient become perfect. As our students though about this week, in Romans 10:4 Paul explains that, "Christ is the culmination [completion, perfect performance] of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." [.....] In Jesus, the deficient can become perfect.
2. THE HEAVENLY SON – In Jesus, the disappointing become pleasing (3:16-17)
What do an egg, a shamrock and water all have in common? Well, they have all been used at different times over the years to try and illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity. That is the truth that the Bible teaches about who God is, the fact that there is ‘one God in three persons’. That statement ‘one God in three persons’ is rather hard to wrap your head around. If you want a quick way to unpack it, you can do so by making three key statements: (1) There is one God; (2) The Father, Son and Spirit are all God; (3) The Father, Son and Spirit are all distinct persons. That is the Trinity in a nutshell. However, it still is clearly a lot to get your head around, and so over the years many have tried to use various objects or analogies to help us understand it. The problem is, we have yet to find an analogy that works, for so far they have all failed to fully capture the truth of the Trinity, and have instead ended up illustrating some kind of heresy. This is why, when the truth of the Trinity was first being written and thought about in the first few hundred years of the church, the leaders and thinkers at the time avoided explaining it in illustrations and analogies and instead did so through clear statements in creeds and confessions, some of which we sometimes say together as a church. However, there was one exception to this. For it was a famous saying during those early centuries that if you wanted to see the Trinity, all you had to do was go down to Jordan.
If you want to see the Trinity, go to the Jordan. What they meant by this was that this passage, Christ’s baptism in the river Jordan, was the clearest illustration that God has given us of the truth of the Trinity. In 3:16, we are told that as Jesus comes back up out of the water, heaven was opened. That is the veil between the physical and spiritual realms was pealed back. And those gathered were not merely given a glimpse into the courts of heaven, but into the God of heaven, the Godhead itself. For at that moment, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove and the Father spoke with a voice. And so, as Augustine, one of the early church fathers pointed out we have all three persons of the Godhead present here in our passage: ‘The Father in the voice, the Spirit in the dove, and the son in the water.’ Our text teaches there is ‘one God in three persons’. Indeed, there is perhaps only one text that surpasses this one in the clarity of that teaching. It comes not at the start of Matthew, but at the end of Matthew. It is not in reference to Christ's baptism here in Matthew 3, but a Christian’s baptism in Matthew 28, where Jesus himself sends his disciples out to baptise those who trust in him "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (28:19). Because there is one name for three persons, we know there is ‘one God in three persons’.
Clearly this event in Matthew 3 is significant. Whe clearest revelation of the Triune God that this world has ever seen must mark a moment of great meaning! The heavens open, the Spirit descends, and the Father speaks. Why? What does this all mean? I think that as we see Isaiah 42 in the background, we understand this all takes place to show that Jesus is that coming servant who will save the nations of the world. The heavens split open and as it were put a spotlight on Jesus, Heaven confirms that he is its king, the Father and Spirit show up to say that he is the divine Son. Here in Matthew 3, at the start of Jesus’s ministry and mission on earth, the Father and the Spirit appear in order to announce the arrival of the Son, to declare and demonstrate beyond all doubt that he is the Messiah they had all been waiting for. We have already noted that the descent of the Spirit here was promised in Isaiah. But as we close, let us think about the voice of the Father, that declaration of his delight, proclamation of his pleasure also promised in Isaiah 42:1. That day, those who had come to hear the voice crying in the wilderness not only heard the voice of John the Baptist, but they heard the very voice of God. For as Jesus came out of the water in 3:17 we read "a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.""
You see the Trinity is not a riddle to be explained, it is ultimately a relationship to be enjoyed. It is a truth to not only exercise the brain in our heads, but to move the bottom of our hearts. Brothers and sisters, do you want to see what God is like? Who God is at his very core? See here that when heaven is opened, when God is revealed, when the clouds are pulled back and we have the chance to look into the very face of God, it is not a frown that we see. An angry God full of fury ready to zap those who make him grumpy. Nor is it a passive expression of indifference, the face of a distant God who just doesn’t care. No, when the heavens are opened and God shows his face: we see neither an angry frown nor a blank stare, we see the smiling face of the Father. "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." The God of Christianity is a holy God. He must punish sin, for he is just and good. But he is also a happy God. A God who is pleased in himself. A God within whom there are eternal, unending relationships of perfect pleasure, complete contentment, eternal love between the three persons of the Trinity. As we seen at the beginning of our service, when God looks down from heaven on all mankind in Psalm 14, he sees none that are good, not even one. But here it is different. Something has changed. For he sees Jesus, the divine Son, the perfect Saviour, and smiles and says "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
Brothers and sisters, when you lie awake at night overwhelmed by all the mistakes you have made, pondering all the possible imperfections that litter your life, the unnumbered blemishes that mar every day of your existence, when you look at all that you have done, all that you have become, and feel deep disappointment take hold of your heart. Stop and take a moment to stare at Jesus. Brothers and sisters, you may not be pleased with yourself. But you cannot but be pleased with him. Wrench your eyes away from yourself and set them on the Saviour. Stop reflecting on your imperfections and start remembering his perfections. Bring to mind the one of whom even God says that he is well pleased. And then remember that when God thinks of you, when he looks at your life, because you are united to Jesus, he loves you with the same love with which he loves his Son. And as mind blowing as it may seem, when he looks at you, despite all the disappointments and deficiencies, he is able to say of you that he is well pleased. For the good news of the Gospel is that in Jesus, the disappointing become pleasing. That because we have turned from sin to the Saviour, we are seen in him. Jesus is the beloved Son of God. And yet as Paul explains in Ephesians 1:6, we are accepted, blessed in this beloved Son. Horatius Bonar put it so well in the words of his hymn:
A mind at perfect peace with God,
Oh! what a word is this!
A sinner reconciled thro’ blood;
This, this indeed is peace!
By nature and by practice far,
How very far from God;
Yet now by grace bro’t nigh to Him,
Thro’ faith in Jesus' blood.
So near, so very near to God,
I cannot nearer be;
For in the person of His Son
I am as near as He.
So dear, so very dear to God,
More dear I cannot be;
The love wherewith He loves the Son;
Such is His love to me!
There is a place for the pursuit of perfection in the Christian life. When Jesus summarises God’s law in 5:48, we will see he really does tell his followers to be as perfect as the Father, or as Paul puts it in Hebrews 12:14 "strive... for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." We too are to seek to fulfil all righteousness! We ought to pray like the Scottish preacher Robert Murray M’Cheyne often did: "Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be made." And yet our pursuit of perfection must never overshadow our enjoyment of God’s satisfaction. It must never imperil the peace that we can have from knowing that ultimately God is pleased with us, only because he pleased with Jesus. For that is the unchanging ground of all our hope. For in that is all the confidence we can have for the future. The eternal Triune God will be pleased with us forever, for he will forever be pleased with his perfect self.
ALEXANDER ARRELL