Matthew 3:13-17 | The Presentation of the King

That ruler of all.

Matthew chapter 3, beginning in verse 13, like to read through verse 17 if you would like to follow along in your own copy of God's Word.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

The Word of God says that 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.

And so John 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.

Amen.

The world now, today, rarely witnesses the coronation of a king, as most nations have moved away from a single ruling sovereign.

Queen Elizabeth of England is the longest reigning British monarch.

But there are some of you who may have witnessed her coronation.

That was about 60 years ago.

If I understand correctly, it was the first coronation ever to be broadcast on television.

Anybody see it?

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Somebody did.

Coronations are typically somber events filled with dignity and elaborate ceremony.

For example, we have some records that as early as 1537, the ritual in Denmark went something like this.

There was a procession to St.

Mary's Cathedral in Copenhagen that followed the Danish royal jewels.

The new monarch was led to the altar of the church where he was then seated.

There he was sworn in, he swore to govern righteously, to preserve the Lutheran religion, to support schools, and to help the poor.

Then he was anointed with oil, not on his head, as we see so often in Scripture, but on his lower right arm and between his shoulders.

Don't know why.

But then the king and his queen changed clothes.

They put on some royal clothes and proceeded then to listen to a sermon and to some singing and reading of Scripture.

Then the king knelt before the altar, was presented with a sword, and crowned by the clergy and the nobles.

The ceremony ended with choral singing, a second sermon, and more scripture reading.

Sounds like my kind of coronation.

Now that is entirely different from the coronation ceremony recorded by Plutarch, the ancient Greek biographer.

He wrote in his book, The Life of King Artaxerxes, that the Persian King Artaxerxes was required to go to an ancient Persian capital.

And there he entered a temple dedicated to a warlike goddess.

He took off his robe and replaced it with the robe worn by King Cyrus at his coronation.

That doesn't seem that big of a deal, but here's where it begins to get strange.

Plutarch then recorded that Artaxerxes proceeded to consume some figs.

The figs were followed by some turpentine.

And the turpentine was followed by some sour milk.

And that was his coronation ceremony.

Kind of strange.

Now the procedure for the United Kingdom is quite detailed.

Since the British sovereign is considered to also be the head of the Church of England, the coronation occurs in Westminster Abbey.

The king is brought in and seated on what is known as the chair of estate.

When he is seated, the Archbishop of Canterbury then walks down the aisles of the church, going from east to west and north and south, asking all who are present if they are willing and ready to submit to their new sovereign.

He then leads in the coronation oath along with the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

And it's only then that the king can be crowned.

So he is then seated on St.

Edward's chair, also known as the Coronation Chair, while the archbishop anoints him on his hands, his breast, and his head with holy oil, and proceeding with a blessing.

He's then handed a set of golden spurs.

Yes, golden spurs.

You know, like for riding horses, because that signifies the leadership of the military.

The sword of state is presented to him, along with a six-inch round golden orb and a ruler's scepter.

Only then can the archbishop place the crown upon the king's head.

After all of that, the king is seated on a throne, the clergy and the nobility come by and he receives their homage, after which he has served communion, before proceeding to St.

Edward's Chapel to exchange St.

Edward's crown for the Imperial State Crown.

Then he exits the church with the Imperial State Crown on his head, carrying the scepter and the orb as the people sing, God Save the King.

Quite elaborate, isn't it?

Quite elaborate.

Overwhelming in a sense.

There's a certain regal nature in all of those distinct steps and details of the ceremony.

It would be easy to get caught up in all of it.

It seems curious, then, doesn't it, that the presentation of the king of the universe to the world that he created and upholds moment by moment gets only a few sentences.

Now, most of us might describe this passage as Jesus' baptism.

Makes sense why we would do that.

But that is not Matthew's point.

This is the king of Israel.

This is the son of David, God's Messiah, and Matthew describes this event as the means by which the king is presented to his people.

It's so plain, so ordinary, that we might even call it an anti-coronation.

There's no crown.

There's no regalness.

There's no elaborate structure, no celebration.

However, it is in this event, alongside the muddy Jordan River of Palestine, that God presented his king.

This is the one of whom God the Father would say a few years later to Peter, James, and John, listen to him.

Listen to him.

John the Baptist set the stage a few sentences earlier in verse 11.

There he said, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me, that is Jesus, is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Jesus would say later that no human being had ever been born who was greater than John the Baptist.

Yet what does John say about Jesus?

He says, He is mightier than I, and I'm not even worthy to be his servant who carries his shoes.

The greatest human being ever born admits that he is nothing compared to this Jesus.

And it is this Jesus, this one, whom John says will send the Holy Spirit and who cleanses with fire.

The one who judges and who executes judgment.

At that time the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone, slave and free, will hide themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the rocks and the mountains, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?

That's how John introduces Jesus.

Listen to him.

Who is this Jesus?

And why listen to him?

Why follow him as king?

Why even have that as an option?

Well, in this next section in chapter four, we see Satan coming along.

Satan is desperately trying to control Jesus.

He desires to rule over him, to gain his submission and his worship.

Seems like Jesus must be a pretty important guy.

Why should you listen to Jesus?

Why should you submit all that you are and all that you have to him to follow him, for him to be your king?

We see answers to those questions in these verses this morning.

There are two parts specifically that I would like you to notice.

We're going to begin this morning with the purposeful nature of Jesus coming to John, and then we'll look a little bit at the presentation of the king.

So at the beginning of verses 13, 14, and 15, let's spend a little bit of time talking about this purposeful nature of Jesus coming to John.

As we look at this, there are a handful of elements that Matthew includes that show us a little bit about the uniqueness of what we see.

One of those unique items is the movement of Jesus.

In verse 13, we are told that he came from Galilee.

Then in chapter 4, verse 1, he is led away from there into the desert.

Then in chapter 4, verse 12, he withdrew again to Galilee.

These movements that we see are not inconsequential.

They are purposeful.

They are made with intent.

Jesus left Galilee to go to where John was baptizing, and he did it with intent.

I think it's safe to say that most of you are here this morning on purpose, right?

You made a clear decision to get out of bed and to come to this worship service to brave the deathly cold, as Webb referred to it earlier.

You made a clear decision to join this group of people to worship the God that we worship.

And you made a purposeful choice to do that.

You're not here by accident.

Maybe there might be one or two people if your car broke down in the parking lot and you just need a warm place to stay for a while.

Look at then you're here by accident.

The rest of you, you're here on purpose.

It's intentional.

Jesus went to John's location intentionally.

And by the Spirit's choice of words through Matthew, we can see that each step of the way from Galilee to the desert and back were purposeful.

Why might that be?

Just as a new king might go to Westminster Abbey to be crowned and begin his reign, the Lord of creation went to a strange prophet preaching by a muddy river to begin his ministry of serving others.

This is the inauguration of the king.

It is the inauguration of the king's ministry to serve his creation.

But King Jesus did not come with pomp and circumstance.

He came with crowds, associating with the ordinary people.

From the very beginning, then we see Jesus as a servant who came to seek and to save the lost.

He came with them, and he came for them.

He came with the crowds of people, but he didn't come like the crowds of people.

He came with them, but not like them.

Because the people, as we saw last time in verse 6, came with repentant hearts, confessing their sin in preparation for submission to the king.

That's what John the Baptist had been proclaiming.

Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

If the kingdom is at hand, then the king is at hand.

Prepare your hearts, come with repentance and confession.

But Jesus did not come in repentance, nor with confession, because the sinless one does not need to repent, and he has nothing to confess.

Because repentance is found only in those who are aware of their sinfulness.

That's what generates repentance.

You become aware of your sin and you respond from that awareness.

And confession then is only heard from those whose hearts are convicted by that sin.

What about Jesus?

The one who is whom Isaiah saw as high and lifted up.

The one whom the angels adored with shouts of holy, holy, holy, has no sinfulness of which to be aware.

And he has no sin of which he should be convicted.

And yet he purposely came to John with crowds of people associating with them to be baptized.

Why?

Well, he placed himself under the law of God to redeem those people from condemnation from that law.

His purposeful coming, though, was not like the coming of the crowds.

It says here that his purposeful coming was because it was fitting.

He says to John, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

It is fitting.

It's interesting here.

In verse 7, John earlier had rebuffed the spiritual leaders of Israel, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, because they refused to be baptized because of their hard-heartedness.

John here refuses to baptize because of his utter sinfulness before the Holy One of Israel.

Before he refused to baptize somebody, now he's refusing to baptize Jesus.

That alone ought to give us a little bit of pause as we come before Jesus ourselves.

We must never forget that we must approach our King with reverence.

Yes, we are brothers and sisters of Christ.

Yes, we are children of the living God.

But we are not as he is.

He is holy, holy, holy.

And we are not.

That's what John notices.

He says, I, I need to be baptized by you.

But Jesus is there on purpose to be baptized.

So he says, let it be so, for it is fitting.

This act of baptism fits God's purpose and plan.

That's what Jesus says.

It fits what God is doing.

Why might it be fitting?

What about this might fit into what God is doing?

Well, there are several possible answers.

In John chapter 1, we see John's account of this situation.

John 1 · chapter mention

And there John tells us that John the Baptist, John the Apostle tells us that John the Baptist said of Jesus, there is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This could be a situation in which it's intended to reveal Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah who would deal with sin.

It's possible.

If you look over at chapter 4, verse 17, Jesus began to preach the same message as John a little bit later.

He said, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

So it would be fitting for Jesus to identify himself with John's message of repentance, because that's the same message that he will preach.

It could also be that Jesus is here to identify himself with sinners.

You're probably familiar with the end of the story, right?

On the cross, Jesus identified with the transgressors.

So it could be that at the beginning and the end of his ministries, Jesus is identifying himself with sinners.

Because the scripture tells us he was made to be sin for us, even though he knew no sin.

He could be coming to validate John the Baptist's standards and his message, kind of affirming, yes, this is God's purpose, this is God's plan, this is what God's doing.

It could be to prepare everything for us.

You can look at Romans 6 and see that baptism pictures God's work of placing us into his family.

And that's what we symbolize in being baptized ourselves.

Each of those could be connected here, but I would suggest to you that those are all secondary to the primary reason Jesus was so purposeful in coming to John.

We're actually told why he came.

It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

That's why Jesus came.

To fulfill it.

Jesus came to be baptized because it was a fitting time, a fitting place, and a fitting method for John and Jesus to fulfill all righteousness.

What's righteousness?

Righteousness includes everything required to live a right life, have a right relationship with God that is lived out in life.

You know, John has preached that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

That kingdom demands righteousness.

Therefore, the king must fulfill all righteousness.

Jesus came to complete everything required to be right with God, because guess what?

You can't.

And you don't.

But Jesus will do it in the time of his public ministry.

That's why the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 10 7, which quotes Psalm 40, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it's written of me in the scroll of your book.

Jesus came to fulfill all righteousness.

And so his ministry begins with a public baptism of himself, and it ends with the commission for all of his followers to go and make disciples and baptize them, teaching them to obey Jesus.

It's fitting for John to baptize, because this event is the inauguration of the king into his public ministry.

Much about the Lord's birth fulfilled God's promise.

We looked at all of those items.

Matthew says over and over and over again this was done to fulfill Scripture.

Well, Jesus would also fulfill all of God's right requirements.

And baptism identifies him with our need to be made right with God.

And the king has come to make sure that it is accomplished.

So what follows then in verses 16 and 17 is a dramatic anointing by God for the role that the Son was filling in the plan of God.

From this point on, John must decrease and Jesus must increase.

So it's here then that we move into the presentation of the king.

That's good to pause here.

What would you expect to see or to hear at the presentation of a new king?

What would you imagine would take place?

What would you imagine would be said?

The process that might be followed.

Let's step that up a little bit.

What would you expect to hear or to see when God presents his king to his people?

Well, there are three clear elements in this presentation of Jesus as the king.

The first and clearest element is the involvement of every single member of the Godhead.

This is arguably the most significant proof of the existence of the Trinity in all of Scripture.

Look at it.

All three members of the Trinity are named.

A voice from heaven that refers to God the Father, not specifically named, but referenced is probably the better word.

Jesus and the Spirit of God.

All three members are identified in distinct ways, at the same moment, at the same place, at the same time.

So they can't be different modes of the same God.

They can't be different manifestations of the same God.

What we see is three distinct persons fulfilling three different roles at the same moment, in the same event.

Two members of the Godhead identify Jesus as God's Messiah, as Emmanuel, as God with us.

The Spirit, in some form like a dove, anoints Jesus for his ministry, sort of formally setting him apart as the king who will fulfill all righteousness.

And God the Father proclaims the announcement.

That's God's way of saying to everyone, pay attention.

God is in your presence, your king has come.

Now, as we expect already in Matthew, this proclamation fulfills Scripture.

We see in Isaiah chapter 11 the prophecy about the Spirit of the Lord resting upon God's servant.

Isaiah 11 · chapter mention

Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.

So we have a Trinitarian presence that is very clear.

Father, Son, and Spirit are all involved in this presentation of the king.

But it's also clear that the Spirit is fulfilling God's purpose here.

This is the initiation of God's program through the earthly ministry of Jesus the King, his Messiah.

Promised centuries before, in Isaiah 42, in one of the servant songs, it says, And the Spirit of the Lord came upon the servant, the servant whom I uphold, the chosen one, the one in whom God's soul delights.

He says, I have put my spirit upon him, and then what happens?

Spirit comes upon him, and then he goes forth to bring justice from the nations.

What do we see in Matthew?

The Spirit comes upon him and he goes forth, bringing justice to the nations.

You can also look at Isaiah 61.

Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

Those two passages in Isaiah encompass every single one of us.

We will either have a need for justice, we'll have need for good news because we are poor in some sense.

Jesus will talk about the poor and brokenhearted in a little bit in chapter 5.

We'll be among the brokenhearted, captive to something, at least sin, and bound up to sin.

We all need this.

And it's clear that God promised that.

But there's a third element that is clear here, and that is the connection with God's purpose.

The Son is baptized, the Spirit anoints, and the Father confirms.

This is my beloved Son.

Do you know?

Sometimes in Scripture, frequency points to importance.

Sometimes frequency points to importance.

So how often something is talked about may have an indication about how important something is.

So the first time God spoke, the universe came into existence.

God spoke later.

And he condemned sin and decreed everything to be under the judgment of sin.

God spoke audibly later on the mountaintop with Moses, giving him the law of Moses.

That means by which God's people could once again be made right with God.

And then for 1,500 years in the pages of Scripture, God did not speak audibly again.

It feels like there was a whole bunch of speaking audibly and then nothing.

Silence from God.

Oh, he spoke through other means, through prophets, through visions, through dreams, but we don't hear the visible.

Visible.

The audible get the right word.

Voice of God.

Tell right here.

Tell right here.

This is my son.

Listen to him.

Comes from Psalm 2.

Psalm 2, verse 7.

Psalms 2:7

Psalmist says, I will tell of the decree the Lord said to me, Today you are my son.

Today I have begotten you.

That psalm continues to speak prophetically of judgment and blessing.

Just like John the Baptist proclaimed, John the Baptist proclaimed, listen, there's judgment coming by the one who holds fire as his source of judgment.

There's blessing if you repent and confess your sins and come to him.

And the psalmist in Psalm 2 says the same thing.

He says, kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

But at the end of the Psalm, he says, Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

We see both of those elements in the psalmist, in Psalm 2, and in John's message.

After an eternity of glory with the Father and the Spirit in heaven, the Messiah King is now anointed and presented for some 30 years of ministry.

Do you know him?

Do you listen to him?

Do you follow him?

You have two options.

Kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

Or take refuge in him and receive blessing.

Let me give you some conclusions.

These conclusions come all the way from the first chapter of Matthew on.

Because everything leads up to this point.

There is a change that begins to happen in chapter 4.

That change where Jesus is now moving out, active in his ministry, doing what God sent him to do.

Everything up to this point is preparatory.

So in that preparation, we can come away with some conclusions.

This is the son of David, the promised Messiah.

That's how Matthew began.

This is the son of David, the promised Messiah.

This is the one who was conceived in Mary by the power of the Most High God.

This is the one whom the Magi sought and whom the shepherds praised.

This is the one who is mightier than John.

This is the one who will judge with unquenchable fire.

This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This is the promised Son of God.

Have you affirmed that in your own life?

Have you embraced the Son?

Have you come to recognize that this is the Lamb of God who came to take away your sin?

Is He your beloved one?

Do you treasure Him more than anything?

Are you well pleased with Him?

If you are not, if you are seeking to please the Father by some other means than through Christ, then you are not a Christian.

Look to Jesus and live.

The psalmist would say, kiss the Son.

Embrace Him.

Come to Him as your refuge.

God the Father will say to us, This is my beloved Son.

Listen.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we come and we bow before you, recognizing that we fail so often.

Our failure is consistent sometimes.

It's egregious sometimes.

Sometimes, like the Apostle Paul, we do the things that we don't want to do.

We purposely choose to sin and then we're grieved over it.

Oh Jesus, our King, forgive us.

We come before your cross and we lay down our burdens of sin.

We come trusting that you have paid the price for it, that our sin has been paid in full.

It has been removed from the presence of God as far as the east is from the west.

It has been cast into the sea to be remembered no more.

So we bow and we lay aside our arms.

We lay aside our own sovereignty.

We come to you and we embrace you.

Lord Jesus, by the power of your spirit, let no one leave here today.

In the presence of you being angry.

Instead, grant that we would all be repentant, confessing our sins before you.

Embracing our King and receiving the blessing that comes with it.

Amen.