Matthew chapter three, starting at verse 13 says, then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent him saying, I need to be baptized by you. And are you coming to me? But Jesus answered and said to him, Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.' Then he allowed him. When he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him. Then he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are thankful for this day. We are glad and we praise you and we are thankful for this opportunity. Lord, we We know, Father, that we love you because you first loved us and you have made yourself known to us and we ask you to continue that work in this day. Lord, we ask that you would please guide our minds and guard our hearts. Use your word, Lord, that we would know your son better and we would love him more. Lord, we ask that you would use your Holy Spirit to cause our understanding to go deeper, and even as we go deeper in our knowledge, that our praises would raise higher to you as a result. For myself, Father, I ask that You would give your guidance and blessing on the message that you would enable me to proclaim your word with accuracy, with boldness, with passion, and with the intent that all glory and honor belongs to you alone. We thank you and praise you and we ask this in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Anytime you find yourself standing in line and it's a long line, you want desperately for everything to go smoothly in front of you. Some of you youngsters who have been to Six Flags and you've spent an hour in line for a roller coaster, you don't want to get to that final turnstile and find out that one of the cars just got shut down for maintenance. If you're at the grocery store and you're waiting for the self-checkout line and the last thing you wanna see is that the lady in front of you with a huge cart of groceries pulls up and grabs an envelope out of her purse with 50 plus coupons that she starts arguing with the automated machine about whether or not they're valid. Been there, experienced both of those. You don't want that to happen. Last week we saw at the beginning of Matthew 3 that John the Baptist has been sent by God to begin a preaching ministry declaring the necessity of repentance because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom is close, as John would see it, because the king himself is close. And the people who hear that message, though, they didn't know how close, right? The Messiah king is coming soon. He's close. And so the word of John's message spreads and he is out there in the wilderness by the Jordan River and people come to him. How many people? Well, up in verse five, it describes that Jerusalem, all Judea and all around the region of the Jordan. This is a huge ministry. We noted last week how Luke's gospel says that there were common people, there were tax collectors, there were soldiers, and in verse seven we see that there were Pharisees and Sadducees. So this is a huge ministry, but there is nothing in the text that suggests that John the Baptist had ministry helpers who were helping him baptize. There was not authority in anyone but John the Baptist. And so there by the muddy waters of the Jordan River, a line starts to form. It just must have. And as more and more people are convicted of their sin and trusting in the coming of the Messiah King, the line lengthens. And so just visualize this. Try imagining a man. He's a work of fiction. We'll call him Shimon of Shechem. Poor Shimon, he hears the message of the Messiah King that he's coming, that he's close. And Shimon, though, doesn't know how close, but he knows keenly in his heart that he is not prepared for the righteous kingdom of God that's coming. Shimon is a sinner, and he knows it, and everyone who knows him knows it. So he packed a bag and he walked the 20 to 25 miles from Shechem to the Jordan River. He found the crossing since John is baptizing on the far side of the river and then walks up to the river where the place there is a crowd gathers and he sees the line. And there is nothing to do except get in line and wait his turn, right? And he waits and waits. I mean, John can only dunk people so quickly. And sometimes, as we know, John spends time teaching and other times he spends time even rejecting some of those people who came. The Pharisees and Sadducees had come. By the way, I have an easy time imagining that they cut in line. They get to John and he sends them away. That takes time. And so as the day wears on, our poor Shimon gets slowly and almost imperceptibly closer to John until he's at the very edge. He is sinking into the mud on the bank of the river and he listens as the man in front of him gets in the water and starts arguing with John the Baptist. John is trying to send him away, but the man insists on being baptized. Our poor Shimon of Shechem is thinking, come on, man, get out of the way. The Messiah King is close, don't you know? I need this, let's get on with it already. Little did he know the glorious scene that was unfolding in front of him. Now, is Shimon from Shechem a real person? Yes and no, obviously he's a work of fiction, but just as obviously there was a crowd that gathered from long distances. There was a line that was forming in order to be baptized by John the Baptist. People were waiting their turn, guilt-ridden sinners, convicted of their sin, their need for repentance and cleansing, got in that queue, and in verse 13 it describes, Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. So standing in that line in this mass of humanity at the edge of the muddy waters of the Jordan River, Jesus of Nazareth gets in line to be baptized and standing shoulder to shoulder with him are dozens of shamans from Shekel. Repentant sinners awaiting the coming of the Messiah King, the one who is close, and they have no idea how close. Every guilty sinner in that line belongs there, but there is a perfect man who, in many ways, really doesn't belong there. And then we read this, and I can't help but wonder if we do the equivalent to the same thing I've described as our fictional Shimon of Shechem. Like, have you ever been reading through your gospels and get struck with the glory of the scene in this text and just ignore it, just read through it essentially as like, well, come on, man, we know this, get over with it. So the real story starts to happen. Because if we slow down and think about this, this text presents us with difficult questions that require some thought. They're worth some thought. When we think through and get an answer to the question that this text brings up, we might just be blessed for the time we spend in contemplation of it. And here's the question. It is the obvious question. You know why Shimon of Shechem and why absolutely everybody else would be in that line. But why does Jesus need to be baptized? I mean, really, when he comes down from Galilee and he gets in that line, in many ways, he does not fit, right? What is John's baptism all about? Well, you can see up in verses one and two in this chapter. In those days, John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then verse 5 and 6, Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region round about the Jordan went to him and were baptized in the Jordan, confessing their sins. Last week we talked about the two basic motivations for John's baptism. The first, that the kingdom is coming because the king is coming. And second, you need to repent of your sins and be cleansed, right? To come to God as something new and righteous if you're gonna be part of the Messiah's kingdom. The Apostle Paul later on in Acts chapter 19 verse 4 would kind of summarize John the Baptist's ministry like this. He would say, John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who comes after him, that is on Christ Jesus. So, if that's what John's baptism is about, why is Jesus being baptized? Does Jesus need to confess and repent of sin? No, He's perfect. He is the sinless Son of God. Does Jesus need to express faith in the coming Messiah King? No, He is the Messiah King. So why did this happen? Why did Jesus come down from Nazareth and Galilee and spend hours standing shoulder to shoulder with sinful people just so he could get in the water and argue John the Baptist into allowing him to be baptized? What is the baptism of Jesus all about? Well, again, another long introduction, but biblically, We're not left to wonder about the answer to that question. We're gonna primarily focus on Matthew's gospel, but we'll draw from the other gospels as well. And I want to identify four reasons why Jesus was baptized. Four reasons why Jesus was baptized. First, Jesus was baptized in order to be publicly recognized by the forerunner. That's a really long point, so I'll say it again. Jesus was baptized in order to be publicly recognized by the forerunner. The work of John the Baptist was to recognize the Lord Jesus as the coming Messiah. And I use that word recognize in both senses of the word. We sometimes think of the word recognize, we might use it both in the sense of knowing and in the sense of noting. So let me explain that. For example, if you meet somebody, right? If the Bollings walked in today and they see me for the first time in years, Brother Bolling might go, oh, I recognize you. To say, I know who you are. On the other hand, you could be introduced to a king and bow your knee as a sign of recognizing his authority. That is noting who he is. It was John's work to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, that is to both see and know the truth that Jesus is that Messiah King, and it's also his work to recognize Jesus as Messiah in the sense of declaring, noting, making known that that's who Jesus is. Both of those things happen as a result of the baptism of Jesus in our text. This even confirms for John exactly who Jesus is and allows John to make proclamation to others about who he is. John needs to recognize Jesus before he can recognize him. That is to know with certainty he is the Messiah King before he can proclaim with certainty he's the Messiah King. Now we might think that John has all the evidence that he needs even before the baptism of Jesus. After all, John the Baptist is Jesus's cousin, right? It's clear that they know each other. Even before the two cousins were born, they met and John recognized them. Luke records the story of Mary, pregnant with Jesus, coming and visiting Elizabeth, who's pregnant with John the Baptist, and he says that when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. So that is, John the Baptist recognized Jesus in that sense before he was even born. And we might think, well, that's all John needs. And even our text describes this scene, and it's evident that John the Baptist knows Jesus to be, at the very least, he knows Jesus to be exceptional. Look at verses 13 and 14. Jesus came to Galilee, to John, to Jordan, to be baptized by him, and John tried to prevent him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and are you coming to me? Now, for this to make sense, I am going to argue that John is, at this point in time, very well acquainted with his cousin Jesus, and may even suspect that Jesus is the coming Messiah, but he is not yet certain that Jesus is the coming Messiah. And if you go along with me for just a moment, I think I can prove that, okay? Be patient. In verse 14, the description that John tried to prevent him is describing a much longer process than this short conversation records. It is continual. John continually, persistently attempted to deny Jesus' baptism for some time. Now why would John want to deny Jesus' baptism? I think there's primarily two reasons. First off, John's baptism is a baptism of repentance for sin. When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to John, John denied them baptism because they weren't coming out of repentance. The Pharisees and Sadducees had sin, but they had not repented of sin. And if you're not repenting of sin, John the Baptist is not going to baptize you. We saw last week how John's message of repentance was a change of mind about sin that leads to a change of behavior in regard to sin. How is Jesus gonna do either one of those things? Is Jesus going to change his mind about sin? Is Jesus gonna change his behavior about sin? You can almost picture the gears turning in John's head and say, look, has Jesus repented of sin? No, he doesn't need to. Is Jesus gonna live more righteously after this? No, he's been perfect. Baptism doesn't make sense for him. The second reason why John tries to prevent Jesus is expressed clearly in the text in verse 14. I need to be baptized by you, and are you coming to me? Poor John, he is out there by the River Jordan preaching a sermon that he knows he needs to hear. In fact, every preacher of God's word throughout history has been preaching a sermon that they know they need to hear. John keeps telling guilty sinners they need to repent and be baptized, trusting in the coming Messiah King. But is John a sinner? Yes. Does John need to repent? Yes. Don't you think John wants to be baptized? Clearly he does, based on the text. And there is nobody authorized to do that for him. And now stepping down from the river bank is this perfect cousin who has never committed sin, has no sin to repent of. He is the one person who John knows might have the right and authority to baptize him, and instead, this is turned around. This is completely backwards in John's mind. Jesus doesn't need to be baptized, but I want to be baptized, so why don't we switch this around? So at this point where they're both standing in the water, did John know that Jesus was the coming Messiah King? He may have suspected it. I think he suspected it. It's hard to imagine that his parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth, wouldn't have told him the story of his own birth and that of the birth of Jesus, but John did not, at this point, have absolute certainty because God had promised him a sign and he had not yet received that sign. If you would, turn to John's Gospel, the Apostle John's Gospel, chapter one. And we're gonna look at verses 29 through 34, but just so you know in advance, this is after the baptism of Jesus. You'll see John declaring Jesus as Messiah after getting confirmation from God that that's who Jesus is. John chapter one, starting at verse 29, the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who is preferred before me for he was before me. I did not know him, but that he should be revealed to Israel. Therefore I came baptizing with water. And John bore witness saying, I saw the spirit descending from heaven like a dove and he remained upon him. I did not know him. But he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, this is he who baptized with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. God had given John authority to baptize and had given John the Baptist the promise that he would recognize the coming Messiah King by seeing the Holy Spirit of God descend on that man. That happens at the baptism of Jesus and not before. So when John in John's gospel says, I did not know him, he was not saying, I never met Jesus, I have no idea who this Jesus guy is. What he's saying is, he clearly knew Jesus, but this I don't know him is meant as I did not receive the confirmation sign from God that this is the Messiah. And so Jesus came to be baptized by John so that when the Holy Spirit descended on him, John the Baptist would see that and know with certainty, this is the Messiah King. And we just read how from that moment, His message changed, right? It changed from, well, there is one coming after me whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry, and it changes after the baptism to that's Him. That is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That is the one I have been telling you about. He is not just the Messiah King, He is the Son of God. So the baptism of Jesus had to happen for him to be recognized by the forerunner. Second, Jesus was baptized in order to fulfill all righteousness. Even before the Spirit descends on Jesus as the promised sign for John the Baptist. Jesus has to convince his cousin to administer baptism for him. And it wasn't easy. Matthew's gospel describes it as John kept on trying to prevent him. John kept arguing it should be the other way around. But Jesus finally convinces John the Baptist by the argument in verse 15. Jesus answered and said to him, permit it to be so for now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he allowed him. It's only after this that John finally concedes the argument and baptizes Jesus. John wisely, if reluctantly, submits to Jesus's authority in this matter. And let me just say in a practical note that when you submit your life to the authority of King Jesus, you're likely going to experience some things very similar to John the Baptist in the sense of Every genuine servant of God should recognize that by submitting to the Lord and living for Him and doing His work, He is going to place before us work that we are keenly aware we are not qualified for. I mean, John knows he's not worthy to carry Jesus' sandals, much less is he worthy to call a whole generation to repentance and faith. He's not worthy, he says, to baptize Jesus. We don't serve Jesus because we deserve to or because we're worthy of it. And so that means you don't get out of serving Jesus by saying, I'm not good enough. While that's true, I'm not good enough. It has been well said that God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies those he calls. The argument of the Lord Jesus that he makes with John in order to convince him is permit it or suffer it to be so for now. For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. And within that statement, there is a promise and an explanation. The promise is, allow it to be so for now. for John to baptize Jesus is just incongruous in John's mind because it's completely backward. And so Jesus' argument is this incongruity, it is temporary. It won't stay backwards forever. Jesus has become, and at this point is beginning his earthly ministry. And soon enough, it's going to be evident who is in authority over whom. In fact, I think this promise may very well be the basis for John starting to make statements like, he must increase and I must decrease, right? This strange circumstance where I'm baptizing him like I have the authority, that's not gonna last forever. Allow it to be so for now, and then things are going to get switched. That's the promise. The explanation is, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Now listen to me closely, because if we're trying to answer the question, why was Jesus baptized? Biblically, there are several answers, and we're gonna talk about those, but there is only one answer that comes from the mouth of the Lord Jesus himself. He had to be baptized, he says, in order to fulfill all righteousness. You've heard this before, but I'm gonna tell you, every time the occasion allows, I'm going to try to drum this simple sentence into your hearts and minds. Jesus lived for you before Jesus died for you. That is, as much as we look at the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus as removing our sin and giving an everlasting life, it is also evident that the perfect life of Jesus was lived on our behalf before that. What God requires rightly of each of us is a holy life. He has given us His word, He's given us His law, He's given us His moral standards, and we all, we each of us, have failed to fulfill this righteousness, to do His holy requirements. And we tend to think of that only in terms of breaking the rules, right? When you do something that the Bible says thou shalt not, then you've committed sin. What we need to embrace is more than that. It is the reality that our sin is not merely found in just doing what God has said, don't. We also sin every time we fail to do what God has shown us that we must. Jesus is the only one who lives out that perfect righteousness. He did not merely avoid the pitfalls of committing sin. He was always doing what was right and good. He satisfies the righteous requirements of God in our place. And this is what I mean that he lived for us before he died for us. He fulfilled the command of God on our lives and then died for us, absorbing the wrath of God in our place. He always did what was right. And this is Jesus's argument with John. He doesn't tell John, you're wrong. I need to be baptized for repentance. And he doesn't say, well, you're wrong, you really are greater than me. His simple and compelling argument is, isn't this right? Isn't it fitting for us to always do what is right? We must fulfill all righteousness. And so no, Jesus did not have sin to confess, he did not have repentance that he needed to express, but it is certainly right for him to publicly affirm his rejection of sin and his commitment to live in holiness. That's the right thing to do. And now in a practical sense, Jesus has set a righteous standard. Every person who has repented of their sin and trusted in the Lord Jesus for salvation, we can know that submitting to baptism is the right thing to do. We are following his example. You can express your faith in Him and your commitment to live a life of righteousness by following His example in baptism. It is right. And so Jesus was baptized in order to be recognized by the forerunner. He was baptized in order to fulfill all righteousness. Third, Jesus was baptized in order to identify with sinners. He was baptized in order to identify with sinners. To be clear, Jesus did not identify as a sinner. he identified himself with sinners. Here is this 30-year-old perfect man who has lived in relative obscurity up in Nazareth of Galilee from the time he was an infant until the time he is 30. There is only one short story in all the Gospels, and that's Luke telling the story of his coming of age at age 12 in the temple. Other than that, almost 30 years of obscurity. And now he walks down from Nazareth in Galilee alone, because this is essentially kicking off his ministry. He doesn't have a group of disciples following him. Nobody knows it, but this is the Messiah King, the Son of God who's come to save sinners. He's come to save sinners. And in this nation, at this time, there is one place where Jesus can go and publicly identify with sinners. And so He walks down from Nazareth and quietly gets in line with them. When you start reading this story at the beginning of the chapter with a good understanding of what John's ministry and message is all about, then you know that Jesus does not belong in that line. This is a line of sinful people. It is a line of repentant people. If our fictional Shimon of Shechem was standing behind Jesus, if he could open his heart and tell you all the things in it, he knows he's a sinner. His friends know it, his family knows it. He is there in line just like everybody else in line because he's ready to make a statement about his need to be cleansed in order to be ready for the Messiah King. But there's the Messiah King standing shoulder to shoulder with him. Jesus came to identify with sinners. It's fitting that this is how he begins his ministry since this is what he's going to do throughout his ministry. There is never a time when Jesus just associates himself with the righteous people of the world, because how could he? There aren't any. Not really. Now there are some folks who think that they're righteous, but they're gonna hate Jesus. In fact, John's already kicked those people out of line, right? Jesus, everybody knows, That if they're in that line, it's because they're a sinner. And Jesus comes into that line to identify with people who know that they're sinful. I love that Matthew's telling this story because later on he's gonna express this as a reality. He's gonna experience it. Matthew was a publican. He was a tax collector, someone who rejected God and betrayed his country. He is the worst of the worst. And Jesus is going to come to Matthew while he is sitting at the collection table and say, leave all that and follow me because he identifies with sinners. And not only will we see that Matthew leaves the table of tax money and follows Jesus, he also throws a dinner party for Jesus that night. And it is filled with all the wretched rabble of society. There's other publicans, and prostitutes, and enforcers, and cheats, and thieves, and extortioners. All the morally bankrupt of society, and while he is inside having a meal, and what I assume is some really interesting dinner conversation, The Pharisees are peeking in the window asking his disciples, why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners? Because he came to identify with sinners. In fact, he knew what they had been asking, and so he answered, I've not come to call the righteous, but I've come to call sinners to repentance. My friends, are you not glad about this? You should be, because righteous is what you are not, and sinful is what you are. And he freely identifies with sinners. When we read the rest of his ministry, every time this issue raises its ugly head, Come back in your mind to the beginning of his ministry. Come back to the muddy banks of the Jordan River and see him standing in line and praise God that he has come to identify with sinners. Fourth, and finally, Jesus was baptized as an expression of the fullness of God. Jesus was baptized as an expression of the fullness of God. At this point, a lot of y'all are Familiar with me playing the sovereignty of God trump card, right? The trump cards, the one that beats every other card in the deck, a good old sovereign grace Baptist can play that. Why did Jesus get baptized? Because that's what God wanted him to do. Bam, trump card. Hardly seems fair, but listen, it's in the text. Look at verse 16 and 17. When he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were open to him. He saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Now you know this dove is not just any dove, and this voice is not just any voice. The dove is, in verse 16, the Holy Spirit of God. The voice is, in verse 17, naturally, the Father, because He declares Jesus to be my Son. So this occasion, this is God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, issuing their stamp of approval and satisfaction on the actions of God the Son. If you've ever encountered Oneness Pentecostals, they are one of the many groups that deny that the Trinity exists. They'll note that the word's not found in Scripture. And they're right, the word Trinity is not found in Scripture because it's a Latin word and Scripture's not in Latin. The New Testament writers refer to the Trinity as the Godhead. But essentially, oneness Pentecostals believe that God sometimes displays himself as the Father, and sometimes displays himself as the Holy Spirit, and sometimes displays himself as the Son, but only one at a time. God is never all three at once. That is actually a repackaging of an old heresy called modalism, and it's ancient. and to believe something like that. You have to ignore texts like John 17, where Jesus the Son is praying directly to the Father, or more obviously, you have to ignore events like the baptism of the Lord Jesus in all the synoptic gospels, the events This event is clearly God the Father issuing an audible voice, praising God the Son, even as God the Holy Spirit descends onto the Son to empower his ministry. Now that doesn't mean that we finite creatures are gonna wrap our minds around that. But God is one in three persons. He is Father, Son, and Spirit, perfectly co-equal. And we can see the fullness of God on display in this text on this occasion. It is evident that the baptism of Jesus is an act that was planned by God, fulfilled by God, endorsed by God, and satisfying to God in all his three persons. The Holy Spirit descending on Jesus was the very sign that John the Baptist was awaiting for. And so now he can rush out and proclaim with absolute certainty that Jesus is the coming Messiah King because I saw the Spirit descending on him like a dove, John says. People always want to know, was it a literal dove? Look, Matthew says like a dove, Mark says the same thing, Luke's gospel actually says the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form as a dove upon him. So I think something bodily came and descended, but that it was a dove is an expression of the gentleness of Jesus in his ministry. The voice proclaiming Jesus to be my beloved Son is the voice of the Father booming down His approval from heaven. This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. A similar voice booms down at the transfiguration. This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. Listen to Him. The combination of these things, the Son coming to do the will of God, the Father voicing his approval, the Spirit descending like a dove. It's actually a fulfillment of prophecy in Isaiah 42 verse one that says, behold, or look there, my servant whom I uphold, my elect one in whom my soul delights, I have put my Spirit upon him. This is the Messiah, look at him. He's my son, he's acting in ways that are pleasing. The divine spirit's with him, empowering him and guiding him. And this message is for multiple audiences. It's for Jesus, it's for John, it's for Shimon of Shechem and everybody who's there on the riverbank. Mark and Luke both record the voice of the father as saying, you are my beloved son, as if speaking directly to Jesus. But Matthew here records it as this is my beloved son. To make it clear, this divine voice was heard by the others who were there. This expression of the fullness of God, Father, Son, and Spirit assures us that the work of Jesus is not just a good plan that was developed by a clever man, it is the completion of the plan of salvation that was formulated in the determinate counsel of God in ages past. The Father planned this salvation, the Son accomplishes this salvation, the Spirit empowers this salvation. And so just, can you imagine this? As thousands of people stand by the side of the Jordan River, confessing their sins, they're doing that because they know full well they are not someone who has lived a life that's pleasing to God. And then from among them, a man who looks just like any other man steps forward and he wades into the water and he is baptized. And they see the heavens split apart, verse 16 says. The Holy Spirit descends on him. The voice of God the Father, who you have displeased, speaks of that man and says, that's my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. and He was standing in line next to you. The Lord Jesus came to identify with sinners so that we can be identified with His righteousness. We have a friend in Jesus who is willing to identify with us, with us who are displeasing to God. He is perfectly pleasing to God and he still identifies with us. He stands with you in your workplace. He sits with you as you do your schoolwork. When you know you are a rotten sinner and you need to confess of your sins and repent, He's there with you. He is willing to step into broken marriages. We trust Him to heal broken bones. The glorious scene that's happening in this baptism, it represents more than just some day where Jesus came and stood in line and got wet. This represents the fullness of God's promise and plan of salvation. The Messiah King has come. He fulfills all righteousness for us. He willingly identifies with us. In our lives that have displeased the Father, when you've displeased the Father, get as close to Jesus as you can because he's always happy with him. Only because of His gracious work can you repent and be baptized, and in doing so, identify yourself with the Messiah, King Jesus, who has willingly come to identify with us.