11/17/2023 – The Evidence of a Life Pleasing to God
Matthew 3: 13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 14 And John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?” 15 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. 16 When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
The life of our Lord Jesus is the life that most pleases God the Father. The first public confirmation of this came during His baptism. Our Lord went to the Jordan to be baptized. When He came out of the water, the Father spoke to Him, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. No one else received confirmation from God that came even close to this.
The Lord had not yet started His ministry. This was not after the works of Christ or His teaching. This was about the person the Lord Jesus had chosen to be in His everyday life. In His home, in His work. This is about how He treated people, how He lived a normal, ordinary life. He pleased God. This is the foundation of any ministry, of any home, of any career, of any life.
Baptism is a sacrament instituted by God as a symbol of forgiveness through repentance. The first confirmation that you are doing the will of God is that you have repented…you have turned from your sin to the commandments of God.
The Lord did not need to repent. He is eternally in communion with the Father, and the Father is eternally pleased with our Lord Jesus because our Lord Jesus has perfectly fulfilled every expectation from the Father. Instead, His baptism was a perfect opportunity to confirm the holiness of Christ.
This is the foundation of a life that pleases God: a life of repentance. Only those who are in Christ, those who have placed our faith in Him for salvation, can be pleasing to God. And the evidence is objective and visible because we are enabled to break the chains of sin. We can repent every day and be sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God.
If it wasn’t for the Lord Jesus, our Father in heaven could NEVER be pleased with you…with any of us. Our own works, even the ones we consider good, are always stained with sin. We can only be pleasing to God when we trust Christ for the redemption of our sin, and we sanctify ourselves by His Spirit.