Chapter 3, where we read about the gospel according to Matthew. Matthew chapter 3, where we read about the baptism of Jesus, which is immediately followed by the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. Matthew chapter 3 can be found on page 1027, I believe, in the Adoration Bibles, 1027. And we want to read this passage in connection with Lord's Day 12 in our catechism. where we now move from the Son of God's name to His title and to the three offices that His title, Christ, conveys, His office as prophet, priest, and king. This afternoon, we want to focus on just the first of those offices, on His office as prophet, and we'll consider His other two offices in the coming weeks. We first read from Matthew 3, beginning at verse 13, and we'll read to the end of chapter 4. This is God's holy word. Then 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. Then he 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. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But Jesus answered, it is written, man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him, again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory. And he said to him, all these I will give you, if you will but fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee, and leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali. so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light. And for those dwelling in the region in shadow of death, on them a light has dawned. From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. And he went throughout all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria. And they brought him all the sick and those afflicted with various diseases and pains and those oppressed by demons, epileptics and paralytics and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee to the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem to Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever." Let's turn also to the church's confession to the Lord's Day 12 of the catechism. It's on page 213 in the back of the Forms and Prayers books. If you're using one of our song books, Lord's Day 12 is on page 877. 877 in the song book, 213 in the forms and prayers books. And as our custom adoration, we'll read the questions and answers responsibly. Lord's Day 12, verse question 31. Why is he, that is Jesus, called Christ, meaning anointed? because he has been ordained by God the Father and has been anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief prophet and teacher, who fully reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our deliverance. our only High Priest, who has delivered us by the one sacrifice of His body, and who continually intercedes for us before the Father, and our eternal King, who governs us by His Word and Spirit, and who guards us and keeps us in the deliverance He has won for us." Question 32. But why are you called a Christian? because by faith I am a member of Christ, and so I share in His anointing. I am anointed to confess His name, to present myself to Him as a living sacrifice of thanks, to strive with a free conscience against sin and the devil in this life, and afterward to reign with Christ over all creation for eternity." This the church of Christ does believe and confess throughout the world. Dear congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, as I mentioned a few moments ago, we move now from Jesus' name to His title. You'll recall from Lord's Day 11 that the Son of God was given the name Jesus because He was sent into the world to save His people from their sins. And now on Lord's Day 12, we see the three ways in which Jesus carries that salvation out. He does so as the Christ. He does so as the Messiah, as the Lord's anointed one. He does so as our chief prophet, our only high priest, and as our eternal king. This is what Jesus was ordained by the Father and anointed by the Spirit to do. And this is really what we see taking place here at his baptism. Here in Matthew chapter three, Jesus is about to begin his earthly ministry, but before he does so, he first comes to John to be baptized, and he does so to fulfill all righteousness. You see, as Jesus goes into the waters of the Jordan River, he is yoking himself to his ministry. Jesus receives this baptism of repentance to identify Himself with those who are called to repent. He identifies Himself with the ones He's coming to save. He's identifying Himself with the people who need to be washed. And it's already here at His baptism, God is making Him to be sin who knew no sin. so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus had no need in himself to be baptized. He had nothing to repent for. But as he goes into the waters of the Jordan River, he identifies himself with us. And after Jesus does this, what happens? The heavens are open, the Spirit descends upon him as a dove, and behold, the Father's voice is heard from heaven. This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. And this, you could say, is where Jesus is officially recognized as the Christ. This is where Jesus is officially recognized as being the long-awaited Messiah whom Israel has been waiting for for centuries. just as men today are officially set apart for gospel service by the laying on of hands, so too Christ here is being officially set apart, commissioned by the Father, equipped by the Spirit, to be the Christ, to carry out His office as the Christ, as the prophet, priest, and king. And immediately following this, his ordination service, Jesus gets to work. Jesus immediately takes up his task as the Christ. He goes to battle against Satan in the wilderness. You recall how in the Garden of Eden, Satan had brought the battle to them. Satan brought the battle to Adam and Eve, but here in Matthew 3, Jesus takes the initiative. Jesus brings the battle to Satan. Verse 4 tells us that it was the Spirit of God who led Christ into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. It was the Spirit of Christ who leads Christ into the wilderness to wage war for us. It's the Spirit of Christ who leads Christ into the wilderness to gain the victory for us. This is precisely what we see the Lord did, and here we see that where Adam failed, Christ prevailed, and he did so as our chief prophet. He did so by resisting the devil with the word of God. He prophesied, he preached to the devil saying, it is written. And from there he began to preach to others as well. When we think about Christ's work as the Christ, perhaps the first thing that comes to our minds is his work on the cross, because we know it was there at the cross that he offered himself up as that atoning sacrifice to make atonement for sin, and that is a crucial component to Christ's work. As we'll consider next Sunday, Christ really is our only high priest who delivers us from sin and death by offering his own body up as a complete sacrifice for our deliverance. But unless Jesus is also our chief prophet, unless Christ is also our chief teacher, unless Christ illumines our hearts and minds to receive him as priest and king, then his work as priest and king is in vain. The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2.14 that the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. He is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The canons of Dort remind us that when Adam gave in to Satan's temptation, he brought upon himself horrible blindness, terrible darkness. He brought upon himself futility and distortion of judgment and mind, perversity, defiance, and hardness in his heart and will. To quote one pastor, by nature, we walk in darkness. By nature, we stumble along with man-made ideas and notions on the road that leads to destruction. We wander in ignorance and we do not know the way of peace, nor can we find it because by nature we have no fear of God before our eyes. Unless Christ comes to us as our chief prophet and teacher to make the Father known and to make the will of the Father known, things are pretty bleak, aren't they? Apart from Christ, God says that we would be destroyed for our lack of knowledge. Without Christ as her chief prophet and teacher, Sloane would be doomed also, wouldn't she? If left to herself and to her own devices, she would never come to know God, to know the will of God. And the same is true for every one of us here. And so what amazing thing it is that the very same God who said, let light shine in darkness, 2 Corinthians 4, 6, is also shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. In His grace and mercy, God has given us a chief prophet and teacher in the Lord Christ to fully reveal the Father's will, to fully reveal His secret counsel concerning the way to salvation. This, beloved, was Christ's task. This is what Christ was commissioned to do. And this is what we see here in Matthew 4, as Jesus officially takes up this Christly ministry, as he takes up his messianic calling. Immediately following his baptism, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after 40 days of fasting, you can only imagine how hungry he must have been. He must have been starving. And that's when the devil finally comes out to meet him. Satan comes out to meet him when he's hungry. He comes out to meet him when Jesus is at his physically weakest. And so how strong, how strong the temptations must have been. But how strong our Savior remained in the face of them. Jesus was tempted in his humanity. He was really tempted. Perhaps it's tempting for us to come to an account like this and to say, well, how fair is this? Jesus is a son of God, and if he is a son of God, well then, he can sin and he won't sin. And that's true. The son of God, as the second person of the Trinity, cannot and would not sin. But that doesn't mean the devil's temptations weren't real. Because Jesus was tempted in his humanity. And the things that he was tempted by appealed to his humanity. And if Jesus was going to undo what the first Adam had done, he couldn't simply tap into his divinity. He couldn't simply touch a button and go into divinity mode. He had to face these temptations as a man. And if we were to be regained by His obedience, His obedience had to be the obedience of a man. His hunger was as real as our own. His fatigue was as real as our own. But here's the amazing thing, Jesus never gave in even for a moment. And in this way, it's actually the case that his resistance means that his temptation was stronger than any temptation that you have ever endured. One pastor illustrates it this way. Imagine that you're asked to do pull-ups or chin-ups, and you're told to hold yourself up as long as you can and to not let yourself down. Well, what happens, eventually you're Your arms give out, you get tired, you get weary, and so you let yourself down to experience that relief. The longer you stay, the harder it becomes to stay, to stay up. When Christ was tempted, he did not let himself down. And so the longer he resisted, the more challenging it became. when he came to the Garden of Gethsemane at the end of his life, and as he prayed that the cup of wrath would be passed from him, and in his deep agony, his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Because humanity was real. The temptations were real, and so the temptations that he endured vastly outweigh the temptations any of us will ever endure, because we give in to temptation all the time. When resistance gets hard, we let ourselves down, we let ourselves drop, even if for a little while, to get a little bit of relief. But Jesus never did for a moment. By the power of the Spirit, he resisted his humanity throughout the entirety of his life. The tempter came and said to him, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. And in essence, what Satan is saying was this, I know you're hungry, Jesus. Your father hasn't fed you for 40 days. He must not really care about you. Now, you're the son of God, so why don't you just turn these stones into loaves of bread? But in contrast to the people of Israel who groaned against God when they were hungry, in contrast to Adam whose appetite led him to reject God in the garden, Jesus resisted the devil with the word of God. He quoted Moses' words in Deuteronomy 8. He answered him, it is written, man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. In his response, Jesus was essentially saying, yes, I am hungry. but my hunger is not going to overrule my trust, because I know that even though I'm hungry, I know that my Father loves me, I know that the Father is well pleased with me, he said so. I know that he will sustain me no matter how hungry I get, and so I will not take matters into my own hands. It's saying the same thing in verse five. If you're the son of God, he says, cast yourself down and let the father, and the father will command his angels concerning you. And the temptation is similar to the first temptation. He's saying, okay, well, if you really believe that your father loves you, if you really believe that the father cares for you, even though you're hungry after 40 days, then why don't you put that love to the test? Throw yourself down and see if he'll catch you. But Jesus responds, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. In essence, Jesus' response reminds us that it's the Lord's prerogative to test us, not ours to test him. In verses eight and nine, Satan showed him all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory, and he said to Christ, all these I will give to you if you will but fall down and worship me. And at the heart of Satan's temptation here is to say, Jesus, I know that the nations will one day be yours. He knew the Psalms that spoke about Christ being given the nations. But Satan is saying, I'll offer you a shortcut. If you but fall down and worship me, you can gain the glory and you can bypass Gethsemane and Golgotha. But Jesus said, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. To quote one pastor, Jesus, you see, was intent not only on doing the Father's will, but he was intent on doing the Father's will in the Father's way. He knew it was the Father's will that He should be given the nations. He knew that to be so. But the Father's way to that glory was the way of suffering. The Father's way to Christ's glory was the way of Gethsemane and Golgotha. And so despite how painful and how costly it was, Jesus says, that's the way I'm going to take. And you shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve. He resists the devil three times. And what the gospel tells us this afternoon is that if you've placed your trust in this Jesus, then the righteousness of his resistance is yours. That's what Lord's Day 23 tells, that his righteousness has been granted and credited to you by faith. The war against Satan was not won just for himself, but his war, his battle against Satan in the wilderness was won for you too. This was the result of Christ's resistance, victory over the chief adversary of our souls. I do want to pause for just a few moments on the method of his resistance because there's a lesson to be learned here for all of us. Jesus resisted the devil with the word of God. No doubt Jesus was the chief singer of Psalm 119. Be sincerely, I have sought you Lord, oh let me not from you depart to know your will and keep from sin your word I cherish in my heart. Jesus could say, Lord, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. And that's the song he lived at the course of his life. And as our chief prophet, as our chief teacher, Jesus summons us this afternoon to learn from him, to behold him and to learn from him. Beloved, how can we resist the false promises of the devil unless the true promises of the gospel are stored in our hearts? How can we withstand Satan's twisting of the scriptures? which is what he does here in his temptations, unless we know the scriptures. Jesus, you could say, went into battle armed for battle. As he waged war against Satan in the wilderness, he did so wearing the whole armor of God, as Paul describes in Ephesians 6. He went into the wilderness wearing the belt of truth and the helmet of salvation. went into temptation wearing the breastplate of righteousness over his chest. In his one hand, he held up the shield of faith to extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. In his other hand, he brandished the sword of the Spirit so that, which is the word of God, that he might resist him fully. And Paul says that if we are to withstand the schemes of the devil in a similar way, then we must be armed in the same way. We too must carry out all our business life armed with the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. This is the kind of prophet that Jesus was. He was a prophet who who loved the Word of God. He was a prophet who armed himself with the Word of God, who had the Word of God stored in his heart. He was the prophet who meditated upon God's Word every day and every night, Psalm 1. He was a prophet who could say, God, Your Word is sweeter to me than honey in the drippings of the honeycomb. He could say, truly, Your Word, O God, is a lamp unto my feet. It is a light unto my path. And this is why he was able to resist the devil when temptation came. Where Adam failed, Christ prevailed. And what happened? In verse 11, we read, then the devil left him. And behold, the angels came and were ministering to him. The devil left him. And the Word of God says to you and to me who are united to Christ that the devil will leave us too when we resist him with the Word of God. Isn't that what James 4 verse 7 says? Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. As John says, greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. As Hebrews 2 says, for surely it is not angels that Christ helps, but he helps us, he helps the offspring of Abraham. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Hebrews 4.15, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. We have a Savior who knew what it was to be tempted. He knew what it was to feel the pull, to give in to temptation. And so when you are being tempted, you have a Savior who knows what you're going through. He knows what it is to be under that pressure. And he knows what it is not to buckle under it. And Hebrews says the Savior is with you in your temptation to help you. He resisted the devil and the devil left him. Jesus won the war. That we know was the first battle, as it were, the battle against Satan in the wilderness, but he won the war, didn't he? And he died and rose again. And to be sure, we recognize that battle skirmishes continue. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. Sometimes it feels like mainly we just lose. But what has Paul said of us in Romans 8, 37? In all these things, in all these battles with temptation, in all these, even giving in to temptation and having to repent again and again, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Verse 12, now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali. so that the words of the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, the Galilee of the Gentiles, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned. The prophet Isaiah spoke of the Christ who was to come as being a great light who would shine upon the darkness of the Gentile world, who would come to brightly illumine our hearts and minds, so that we might come to know the secret counsel and will of God concerning our deliverance. A Christ, a great prophet who would come, he wouldn't just preach the word as the prophets of old, but he would come and he would write that word on our hearts as Jeremiah 31 foretold. This is precise that we see throughout the course of his preaching ministry. After Jesus won the battle against the kingdom of darkness, he begins to proclaim the glories of the kingdom of light. He begins to go throughout all the regions to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. And he shows the power of that message by healing people of their sicknesses and diseases and illnesses, by casting out demons, saying, here's a message, here's a proclamation. that shines brightly in this dark world of decay and death. He preaches as no one else had ever preached before. Commenting on Christ as our chief prophet, Craig Troxell writes that Christ's listeners stood amazed at his authority because he spoke as no one had ever spoken before. His words caught like no one else's words had caught. His words healed like no one else's words had healed before. He baffled the religious experts with parables. He silenced them with his questions. His teaching offered entrance into the kingdom of God with all its grace, freedom, life, and love. Christ was able to proclaim a kingdom like this and he was able to preach in this way because he himself was the final and definitive revelation of the Father. He came, he says in John 17, to make the Father known. He says, this is eternal life, oh God, they may know you in Jesus Christ whom you sent and I have manifested you to them. Hebrews 1, we know that long ago God spoke at various times and in various ways by the prophets, but in these last days, He has spoken to us definitively. He has spoken to us finally and concretely in His Son. Jesus was the prophet whom God's people have been waiting for since the days of Moses. In Deuteronomy 18, 15, Moses said to the people, these are the Lord your God, he will raise up for you another prophet like me from among you, from among your brothers, and it is to him you shall listen. And this The promise, these words reach their fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. What did the father say concerning Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration? His voice was heard from the clouds saying, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. And then he said, listen to him. Listen to him. And this congregation is what God says to us still today. God comes to us in the preaching of the word. He says, Jesus is your chief prophet. He is your chief teacher. Listen to him. Don't listen to the messaging of the world. Don't listen to the message of your own heart. Your own heart can't be trusted. Jeremiah 17 says that your heart is deceitful above all things. It's desperately sick. And so God says, listen to Christ. Trust Christ, trust his word. For even now, as Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, Christ is still as much our chief prophet today as he ever has been. He continues to minister to us by his word and spirit. To quote Troxell again, in this ministry, he never falls short. He never misses the mark, but he does all things perfectly well and by his spirit. Christ the prophet convicts us, he indwells us, leads us, comforts us, and he assures us. When we read the scriptures, when the scriptures are faithfully proclaimed, it is the voice of our chief prophet that we hear. As the Second Helvetic Confession put it, we believe that the preaching of the word of God is the word of God. And through the preaching of the word of Christ, the chief prophet continues to remind us that he still is the light of the world, that whoever follows him will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The words of the prophet Isaiah were fulfilled long ago, but they are fulfilled all over again in our hearing this afternoon. The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned. He is talking about us, Matthew could say, is talking about us. On us a light has dawned. But how is this light enjoyed? How is it that the light of life which is Christ is experienced. We find the answer in verse 17, only in the way of repentance. This is why the message of repentance was at the very heart of so much of Christ's prophetic ministry. From that time, Jesus began to preach saying, repent. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Boys and girls, what does it mean to repent? To repent means to be that you used to be going one way and then God turned you around and now you're going this way. You turn your life around. That's repentance. And that's what Jesus was setting before his people here. He says, you're going the wrong way. Come this way. Follow me. That's repentance. True repentance we know involves the mind, it involves the heart, it involves the will. In the first place, to repent is to see your sin the way God sees it. True repentance means that when it comes to your sin, you think God's thoughts after Him, that you and God are now agreed on the ugliness of sin, on the debt of sin, on the curse of sin. And the second place to repent is to feel in your heart the way God feels about your sin. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7, to repent is to have this, a godly grief for your sin. It is to cry out with David in Psalm 51 against you, and you only have I sinned. I have provoked you to your face, the God of grace, to say, how could I have sinned against you? It's to feel deeply that we have grieved God and grieved the Holy Spirit. is to say sin against other people, we understand, because they wronged us, we understand that, but to sin against God, that makes no sense, to grieve His majesty, and so we're cut to the heart, we're grieved. And the third place, true repentance, involves the will. True repentance means that we not just think differently, we don't just feel differently, but we begin to do differently. True repentance is made manifest, not just in the mind and heart, but also in the will, so that when your sin is exposed, you don't just feel guilty about it, but you actually do something about it. You seek to do whatever must be done to no longer engage in that sin again. To quote J.C. Ryle, true repentance involves a thorough change in the heart and mind about sin. It involves showing godly sorrow for sin. and it must result in a complete breaking off from your old habits of sin. Such repentance, says Ryle, is the inseparable companion of saving faith in Christ. When Christ came into the world as our chief prophet and teacher, he commenced his earthly ministry by preaching a message of repentance. He graciously came to his people and he said, you're going the wrong way. You need to go this way. You need to follow me, for the kingdom is at hand. We know in the last place, this afternoon, how Jesus was pleased to expand the reach of that message by recruiting disciples to follow him so that when Christ returned to his Father, he would still have witnesses on the earth to continue to preach that message, to be his prophets here on the earth. Part of his prophetic mission, we discover, is to make more prophets, if you will. And that's what we see taking place here in verses 18 to 22, as Jesus calls his first disciples. While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Going on from there, he saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee, He saw them mending their nets and he called them to, saying, follow me. And immediately they dropped their nets and they followed him. And do you notice the class of men that our Lord first calls to follow him, he comes in the first place to fishermen. Of course, there's nothing wrong with being a fisherman, not at all, but fishermen were not the most learned or sophisticated men in society, not the most respected men in society. But that's okay, because the point that Matthew is underscoring here, as Jesus calls for a fisherman to follow Him, is that if fishermen can be used in the expanse of His kingdom, then anyone can be used by Him. If Christ can use lowly fishermen to bear witness to Him and to take up His prophetic task in the world, then Christ can surely use you and me to do the same thing. And that's what our catechism is highlighting for us as well. It asks the question, and why are you called a Christian? And to that question, the believer gives this amazing answer, because by faith, I am a member of Christ, and I share in Christ's anointing. That when the Father spoke from heaven, this is my beloved Son, and the Spirit came upon him. The Catholic says, in Christ that's happened to you as well. God is well pleased with you and you've received the anointing of the Holy Spirit because by faith I am a member of Christ and I share in his anointing and so I am anointed to confess his name. Christ recruits disciples to share in his anointing and so I have been appointed and anointed, I've been commissioned and equipped to confess his name. And so have you. That's the believer's confession. I am a member of Christ, and I share in His anointing. Each one of us, by the grace of God, if we've come to God in faith, have been anointed with the spirit to live prophetically, to be Christ's brightly shining lights in this world of darkness and despair. Christ has commissioned all of us to confess His name, and He has commissioned us to do this. We know that it's only in the home, in the school, we prove ourselves to be out of the world. God has set us apart in order that we might serve Him and live for Him. And in the vows of baptism we're reminded too, aren't we, that the primary means by which our children come to know Christ as their prophet is through the ministry, through the godly instruction of their parents. As we heard in the baptism form, it is the duty of Christian parents to act as prophets in the home, to teach their little ones that they have been set apart by baptism as God's own children. And that because of that, their little ones are to repent of their sins and embrace God's promise of forgiveness in Christ by faith. Boys and girls, in God's grace and mercy, you've been placed in homes where your mom and dad share in Christ's anointing. Isn't that amazing? And by God's grace, you have parents, as they share in Christ's anointing, who are tasked to declare to you the mysteries of salvation, the meaning of your baptism, that we too, that we all might cling to Christ as our prophet, priest, and king. Christ has said, everyone who confesses me before men, I also will confess before my Father who is in heaven. Isn't that reason enough to confess Him in this life, to confess the name of Jesus Christ, that He gives us this promise, if you confess me before men, I will confess you before my Father in heaven, as I set the Father's right hand. I'll confess your name, as Hebrews 2 says. He says to the Father, behold, it is I and the children you have given to me. I am not ashamed to call them my brothers. And if you confess his name, Jesus says, that's what I'm saying about you. And so may God grant us the grace to do this very thing. May God be gracious to provide us with more and more opportunities to to do as Peter says, to make a defense for anyone who asks of the reason for the hope that is within us. For Christ has commissioned us for this very thing. He who testifies to all these things says, surely I am coming soon. And so we pray even so come, come Lord Jesus. Amen, let us pray. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you that Jesus is the Christ, that he has become our chief prophet and teacher. Father, we pray that we would learn from him. We pray, Lord, that you'd give us ears to listen to him. Father, we thank you that we have in him a victorious prophet, one who knew the word of God, that we have in Christ a prophet who resisted the devil with the word of God. And we thank you, Father, that by faith in him, the righteousness of his resistance has become our own. Father, we pray that the assurance of this reality would drive us to do two things, that it would drive us to resist Satan with all our might, that the reality of Christ's righteousness now ours would be the driving force also behind our repentance. So when we have lost a battle here or there, We might not be afraid to confess it to you, but we might do so in the confidence that we have a Savior, a sympathetic Savior, who has already paid the debt for all our sins. Father, we pray that you would help us to appropriate Christ's message in our own lives, his message of repentance. Lord, help us to see sin as you see it. Help us to think about sin the way you think about sin. Help us to feel a godly grief over our sin. And help us, Lord, to break every habit with sin. Lord, we know that by nature we walk in one way. We walk following the prince of the power of the air, following the sons of disobedience. And so we give you thanks that Christ came along to say, you're going the wrong way. Come and follow me. Father, we pray that with the immediacy of the disciples on go, we would indeed immediately take up that call to follow you, to follow you in repentance and faith until we see this great prophet face to face. This we pray in his name and for his sake, amen.