From the Pulpit...

Tonight Pastor Matt begins by answers several questions that he was asked and provides biblical insight on each. Later, the message focused on continuing our study in Matthew 3. Matthew reports that Jesus came from His home region in Galilee to be baptized by John at the Jordan. This was the plan and it had to happen. It was not just happenstance that Jesus came along and saw John baptizing people while preaching a message of repentance, and decided that He would like to be baptized as well.9) and as such he could not be sinful. He was not confessing His sins in the Jordan River. John recognized that he needed something from the Messiah, not the other way around! Jesus insists based on the need to fulfill all righteousness. He told John to stop trying to prevent Him, and instead to permit Him to partake of John’s baptism. The Spirit of God came down upon Jesus out of heaven. This is one of the very rare times that heaven is “opened” and is somehow visible to people. Stephen experienced this according to Acts 7:55-56. Paul experienced something like it as recorded in 2 Cor. 12:2. The disciples would see this according to John 1:51. Peter saw heaven opened, another indication of an important revelation from God (Acts 10:11). John saw heaven opened (Rev. 4:1). Jesus will return from an opened heaven (Rev. 19:11). Heaven opened and the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus—not to indicate the first time that the Spirit ever interacted with Jesus, but to show others that Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit already, and perhaps in fresh power and glory now that His public ministry was beginning.