Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Now then, we're studying the life of Jesus. I am thoroughly enjoying it. I don't know about you, but it's certainly doing my heart good. Today we're going to be centered around His baptism in Matthew chapter three. So if you'd turn to that, the whole umbrella under which we're teaching and talking, as you know, is the heartbeat of Jesus. What made Jesus tick? What motivated Him? What moved Him to do the things He did, to say the things He said?

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the desert of Judea saying, "Repent, the kingdom of heaven is near. This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'" Then it describes how John was a wild man and how he was dressed and that he had been a Nazirite living a very frugal life in the desert, preparing himself for this ministry.

He comes out of the desert and begins to preach up a storm. Everybody comes around. Verse five: "People went out to him from Jerusalem, all Judea, the whole region of the Jordan. They confessed their sins; they were baptized by him in the Jordan River." Now, when he saw the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Don't think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you, out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham."

Then he goes on to talk of the Christ in verse 11: "I baptize you with water for repentance, but after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I'm not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." Then, verse 13, Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized. But John tried to deter Him saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"

Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it's proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water, and at that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. A voice from heaven said, "This is my son, with whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

There's the little phrase. Jesus said, "I don't please myself; I only please him that sent me. I do always those things that please him." God responds from heaven three times in the scriptures with the same words. Three times a voice of God was heard by men and women made audible. Each time He said the same basic thing: "Thou art my beloved son; in you I am well pleased."

Now, Jesus had His back to the wall in John chapter five. People were saying, "You say you're this, and you say you're that, and you say you're God," and they were attacking Him, specifically the leaders that had decided to get rid of Him. Jesus said, "Well, I do always those things that please him." They said, "Well, that's your witness. Who else is going to say that about you?" At that point, a voice from heaven said, "I am. This is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased."

Even though God spoke from heaven, people didn't believe. I often wonder what it would take for people to believe in Christ. I often wonder, what's it going to take? Sometimes people say, "Well, if only God would speak, then I'd believe." No, they wouldn't. It's a question of will you believe, not do you believe. If people have made up their minds not to believe, they're not going to believe even as Jesus said in another parable, even if one should come back from the dead—which one did on Easter. They still didn't believe.

So we're going to look at these three incidents when God affirmed Jesus as the divine God-man the Old Testament had talked about, who now had intervened in human history, is here on our planet. We're going to look at the three incidents that affirm that Jesus Christ was God's beloved son in whom He was well pleased. I wonder what brings pleasure to God, you might ask yourself, and what makes Him happy and makes His heart smile. Well, the answer to that is Jesus.

When we look at the baptism record that I've just read to you, you have to realize that for 400 years, God had been silent—silent in the sense that there had been no prophet for Israel. That's a long time to stay silent. The children of Israel weren't used to 400 years of silence. God had been very gracious in giving them a stream of prophets and prophetesses whom He had spoken through. Then comes the intertestamental time when from Malachi to Matthew, no voice had been heard through a prophet of the Lord.

But now a prophet appears. There isn't a question in anyone's mind, the Pharisees and the Sadducees included, that John the Baptist was a prophet. Now, why is he called John the Baptist? He could have been called John the Methodist, couldn't he? Or John the Presbyterian, or John the Anglican, or John the non-denominational whoever. No, he's not called John the Baptist because he was a Baptist as we know it. It's because it describes what he did.

In Wales in the 17th century, there were so many Joneses around that nobody knew which Mrs. or Mr. Jones they were talking about, and so they'd always say what they were to describe it. So there would be Mr. Jones Everyman, Mr. Jones Shopkeeper, Mr. Jones Gardener, Mr. Jones Breadmaker. They would never say their name without putting what they did on the end of it. That's exactly the same here. John the Baptist, because that's what he did.

His baptism had two elements. First of all, he was calling for repentance. That word isn't merely changing your mind about God; it's a radical transformation of the entire person. That's what he was calling for. He was secondly talking about the Kingdom of God. In the Old Testament, there had been a rising hope among the godly and pious Jew that there would be a divine visit. God Himself would visit His little planet Earth, one little tiny planet in the universe of universes that had gone wrong.

Necessitated a divine death to put it right. God would visit this planet, and when He did, a new era—the kingdom era—would start. The new age, the kingdom age, would start. Now, this isn't "new age" that we keep hearing about. This was a new age for the Jews, and it's called the Kingdom of God in the scriptures. John comes and says, "This kingdom is near because the King is near," and he engendered this profound excitement.

Now we've seen he was a fierce man with a fierce message. He wasn't afraid. In fact, he got his head chopped off for his trouble a little later on. He wasn't afraid of taking anyone on and facing them up with their sin. Even when the leaders came down to check him out, a little collaboration came down to see what was happening with his ministry. He turns on them and says, "You're a bunch of snakes." Well, that's not the way to win friends and influence enemies, I wouldn't think—call them a brood of vipers or a bunch of snakes.

He took on the soldiers and he said, "Why don't you be content with your wages and quit ripping people off?" So whenever people came, it was a hard-hitting, fierce message. Even the crowds that came to be baptized, he said to them, "You've got to go home. The hearts of the fathers need to be turned to the children; the hearts of the children need to be turned to the fathers. You put right things at home." The whole of this message culminated in his powerful proclamation that this is preparatory. Don't you see?

He's here. He's here. He's going to come, and my job is to get your hearts and lives ready. "I'm not the Christ," he said in answer to the people that thought he was a wonderful preacher. Maybe he was the Christ. He was such a terrific prophet, and they knew that the Old Testament talked about a great prophet that would come. Maybe John the Baptist was. "No, I'm just the voice. There's one coming that the voice is going to talk about. Just think of me as a voice, that's all. I'm a voice crying in the wilderness. Make way the way of the Lord, make plain."

In Isaiah, there are many prophecies about making smooth the rough places, leveling the hills. What's all that about? Well, in those days, they didn't have tarmac and they didn't have concrete. So the roads used to get messed up with the incredible rains at certain seasons, and mudslides would come. The road repairmen would come if a king was going to visit or an important person, and they would prepare the way for the king. They'd level the rough places.

John said, "Why don't you just think about me like the road repairman? That's all I am." Oh, that more speakers, teachers, Sunday School teachers—more of us that have the privilege of standing behind a pulpit—would think of ourselves like that. I'm just a voice. Don't look at me, don't talk about me, don't think of me. I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness. I'm just the road repairman. I've come to make ready Jesus' entrance into people's lives. That's what he was doing. Fierce man with a fierce message, essentially preparatory. Make way for the Lord.

Now then, the King arrived. John had absolutely no doubt for different reasons that this was the King. Why was Jesus baptized? If this was a baptism for repentance, different from the baptism the Jews were used to going through for ceremonial cleansing, different from believers' baptism that we read about in the Acts of the Apostles, different from covenant baptism that some people point to in the scriptures—this is different from all those baptisms. This was a baptism getting people ready, mindset ready, sin cleansed ready, to hear the Gospel that Jesus Christ was bringing.

The good news was that He had come to bring them to heaven, to die for them in order that they might have entrance into a holy God's presence. That's what this baptism was about. Then why did Jesus have to be baptized? Jesus Christ had no sin to confess. He could not have died for the world as a spotless lamb if He had spots. He was a sinless substitute, able therefore to absorb all the sin of the world and suffer for it and be punished for it.

So why was He baptized? Well, by His baptism, Jesus affirmed His determination to do His assured work and His assigned work. When John tried to deter Him saying, "You don't need to be baptized; I need to be baptized of you," He said, "Well, suffer it to be. I am identifying with the people that I'm coming for. No, I don't have any sin of my own, but I will do one day. I'll have your sin, John. I'll have everybody else's sin somehow imputed to me in order that my father might judge me on your behalf."

"So my baptism now is simply a little picture that I'm identifying with the sinful men of the world, sinful women of the world, sinful children of the world. Suffer it to be; I must fulfill all righteousness." So Jesus' baptism was certainly not to confess sin that He didn't have, but at a salvation point in history which determined His willingness to take on His servant role, entailing His identification with the people and the death that He would die for them.

Jesus at this point chooses the servanthood of obedience. "I do always those things that please him. I came not to please myself, but him that sent me." So Jesus knew of His suffering servant role from the very beginning of His ministry. I'd like you to turn to Isaiah—you keep Matthew open, but I'd like you to turn to Isaiah chapter 42. There are a few chapters in Isaiah that are to do specifically with the suffering servant.

Now we know a very familiar one, don't we? We know Isaiah 53 that talks about Him being bruised for our iniquities, and we hear that each Easter and I think some of us maybe even know it off by heart without knowing we know it. But the servant passages are scattered around the middle of the book of Isaiah. In Isaiah 42, there are these words: "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations."

Keep that chapter open for a bit because it's this chapter that I know was in John's mind and Jesus Christ's mind as He stood in the waters beside John, was baptized identifying Himself with the role that He had come to take. As He came up out of the waters and the dove symbol hovered over His head—be careful with this, it wasn't a dove. What John saw, they used a simile to describe it: the spirit like a dove.

Did you see that? It was like a dove, this sort of shape. As the men sat in Pentecost waiting for the Spirit and the Spirit came, and they saw tongues like fire, not tongues of fire. Here again, it was the simile: the spirit like a dove, or the spirit appeared in the form of a dove, another translation has it. Now then, Jesus knew in Isaiah 42 that one of the passages that dealt with the servant that would come, the God-man, son of man and son of God, would be an affirmation from heaven.

"Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him." Because the people that were waiting for the coming King knew that when the new era came in, there would be justice, there would be getting rid of the oppression, and there would be the beginning of the recreation of the whole universe. All of this was involved in the coming of the Messiah or the coming of the King.

As soon as that voice was heard, "This is my son whom I love, with him I'm well pleased," John knew Isaiah 42. The people around that heard that voice, and there were people around that heard it, they knew because they were good Jews. The servant passages would have been committed to memory in the house of the book. Remember that? The little Jewish boys would go to the house of the book and in the house of the book they would memorize the whole of the Pentateuch by the time they were 12.

Not only the whole of the Pentateuch, but certain passages in certain prophets. The servant passages would have been committed to memory. Incidentally, Jesus Himself would have committed to memory Psalm 22 which begins, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and ends, "Tetelestai," it's finished. So all this scripture was going around in their minds. Now, John had been told that the Holy Spirit's appearance would affirm to him that this indeed was the Christ.

Turn to John chapter one with me if you would. The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, "Look, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is the one I meant when I said a man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me. I myself didn't know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."

Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I wouldn't have known him except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' I have seen and I testify that this is the son of God." John had no doubts. Once in his life later he had doubts, but not now.

When people argue that Jesus Christ was just a son of God, just a man who claimed to be these things, how can all these things have happened that the Old Testament said would happen by accident or by collusion? There is absolutely no way. How did all those people manage to figure it out and make sure that something hovered over Jesus' head that looked like a dove? It's just far more far-fetched to believe some of the things people tell you than it is to believe the record in holy scripture.

If you turn on from John to verse 35 in the same chapter, you see the next day John was there again with two of his disciples. He saw Jesus passing by and he said, "Look, the lamb of God." When it says "the next day," Jesus actually has had His first campaign and He's back at the Jordan at another place over the river with His disciples. His disciples are baptizing people. Different baptism again; don't get muddled up with it.

The other side of the Jordan or round the corner of the river, John is continuing his ministry. He hasn't yet been put in prison. So two of his disciples come and say, "That man you were telling us about? We were there, we heard the voice, and it all seemed very exciting. But do you know what he's done? He's just gone round the river and he's baptizing and he's got a bigger church than we have. All the people are flowing to him."

They were really incensed on behalf of John. Now look who two of these people were in verse 40: Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, and John. These were John the Baptist's friends, disciples, and they were the men that said, "That Jesus of Nazareth, he's round the corner of the river." I love what happens here, how John responds to this. What happens was John says, "I must decrease; he must increase. I'm thrilled to bits."

He again affirms the fact that the man round the corner of the river with the bigger church than he has is indeed the one that the whole of his ministry has been involved with preparing to present to Israel. He sends Andrew and John after Jesus. He says, "Now that's him. Go on. You leave me. I must decrease; he must increase. Off you go after him." John had no problem at all sending his own disciples after Jesus.

So the testimony of John the Baptist was: "This is the man whom God is well pleased with. This is the man who does always those things that please him. This is the man who must be about his father's things and his father's business. This is the God-man, this is the lamb of God who will eventually take away the sin of the world." He has now been baptized identifying with the sin that He will one day absorb into His own body.

I have seen the Holy Spirit anoint Him. Not that He had less of the Spirit before His baptism than He had afterwards, but an anointing of the Spirit is symbolic of a special empowering for a specific task. Jesus takes on that start of His public ministry from that point on. Now, if you go back to Isaiah 42 for a minute, you'll see that the people that afterwards would think back to that—"Yes, I was at that baptism; this was speaking of the servant of the Lord."

There's a couple of little verses here: "He won't shout or cry out or raise his voice in the streets." That's verse two. "A bruised reed he won't break, smoldering wick he won't snuff out. His faithfulness he will bring out as justice." You see writing history in advance. The prophet Isaiah had talked about God's special servant saying, "A bruised reed he won't break, smoldering wick he won't snuff out," indicating the gentleness of his dealings with a broken and burnt-out people.

As the crowds followed Jesus through His life, the words would come to life to some as Jesus showed compassion to the multitudes. As He came along and saw the widow of Nain and her only son dead, and He raised the son to life. And yet, He forbade people to publish His miracles at other times. "Don't tell anyone, don't tell anyone." He was gentle, he was quiet, he didn't raise his voice in the streets, but he showed great compassion.

This bruised reed he refused to break and the smoldering wick he brought into life again. As we think about this, as this voice from heaven sounds out its loving affirmation of the servant of the Lord who will have this ministry of mending bruised reeds and bringing into life people's whole psyche that has been reduced to a smoldering wick and blowing by His Holy Spirit and making that flame leap again—what a wonderful picture it is.

What incredible good news we have to share with our friends and our family and our world and our neighbors, our workmates. Do you know any people that are like flickering flames about to be snuffed out? I do. I think of a friend of mine who's struggling with awful flashbacks of incest. It's as if with each new awful memory the devil puffs on that smoldering wick intent on extinguishing any last glimmer of life.

I think of another colleague who could only be described at the moment as a bruised reed: battered by a divorce, red raw with hostility at work. She's about to break. But I believe that Jesus can mend her and craft her life into usefulness again because a bruised reed he's promised never to break. He'll put his nail-pierced hands around any smoldering wick and blow, not to blow it out, but to fan it into flame.

As Jesus came out of the waters, perhaps the angels unseen but ever-present were thinking about Isaiah 42 as well. "The Lord will march out like a mighty man, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal with a shout. He will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies." Yes, on one hand, he would not raise his voice in the streets. He would be a meek man, he would be a mild man.

That's what's the puzzle about these Jews that knew their Old Testament, because they knew the Bible talked about the servant that would come as humble, as meek, as mild, as self-effacing. And yet what were they looking for? A conquering king. Somebody to get rid of the Romans. A commanding officer of an army. A zealot. A Maccabee. Someone that would do it with force and materially and rely on human effort.

They missed it. Because here was the one as John pointed out. This carpenter from Nazareth, it should have clicked on lights all over the place. "Yes, yes, a man like that. Of course, it would have to be." Now the second time—and now I'd like you to turn to Matthew 17—that we hear this voice sounding out is at the transfiguration. I think this is a very familiar passage of scripture for all of us.

Jesus takes Peter, James, John with him. They go up this high mountain. He's transfigured, and the word is metamorphosis. It's transformed, changes form. The son is the express form of the Father. When God wanted to reveal what He was like, He chose humanity to live inside to show through humanity what He was like, to speak to us in words we could understand. Jesus was the form of God.

God in another form, the metamorphosis idea. Well, here on the Mount of Transfiguration, He takes another form. It's just as if the glory has been contained within His humanity and it spreads out, pops out. These men are able to glimpse the pre-incarnate glory of the son of God, the son of man. He radiates the glory of deity. You can read about this, of course, in the Philippians passage, Christology passage, chapter two.

It talks about Him laying aside His glory, not His deity—His glory. Now here is the only time that we know of except John in his epistle says, "We beheld his glory." We don't know if it was just this time that He showed Himself this way to His disciples. It's certainly the only time that's recorded in the scriptures. But three privileged men were able to see that. Peter, confused or for whatever reason—Peter's always one to open his mouth and put his foot in it—says, "Oh, this is terrific. Why don't we make three little tabernacles like we do at the feast of tabernacles? Moses and Elijah who had appeared with Jesus... Moses could have a little house, and Elijah could have a little house, and I could have a little house, and John could have a little... and we can all have our own little special conference up here."

He didn't want them to go back to heaven. It was amazing that Moses and Elijah were there in a sense. Remember they'd been dead a long time, which is really encouraging. Plus, everybody recognized them. If you ever wonder if you'll ever recognize people in heaven, yes. He radiated the glory. Moses and Elijah were there talking about—I love this—His exodus that He would accomplish on the cross.

Why is that neat to me? Because it was Moses talking about his exodus. He'd gone through that, remember? How many years having his exodus. Now Jesus is going to have another exodus out of this world into glory, achieving what He's come to do. And so they're talking about the cross. Peter and John hear this, and yet they're still fuddled, they're still muddled, they still don't understand Jesus is going to die on the cross.

And yet they're up there, see Christ in all His glory, hear Moses and Elijah very much alive, representing the Law and the Prophets talking to Jesus, asking Him questions perhaps. And they still don't believe themselves when they come down into the valley. However, they do fall flat face on the ground, and a voice comes from heaven saying, "This is my son whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him."

I don't know how the voice said it. But I have a feeling God was leaning out of heaven saying, "You guys, look at him. Listen to him." And yet just a little bit round scripture, a chapter or so off, it says they still didn't understand. Peter said, "You're not going up to Jerusalem to die; I wouldn't let you do that," trying to stop Him. Now, let's not be too hard on the disciples because we have faith problems like this ourselves.

However, this is the second incident. They came down the mountain and if you remember the next incident in that passage of scripture is where they are met with this demon-possessed child. They're met by this little boy, and the rest of the disciples who'd been left who'd been trying to cast this demon out couldn't do it. Jesus, in a display of frustration—God anger, healthy holy—says, "How long must I suffer you? When can I come home, Lord? These guys, they'll never get it. This sort doesn't come forth by anything but prayer and fasting," and He cast the demon out.

When I look at this particular passage, I think all of us need to climb our worship mountain and see Jesus only. Because it says He came and touched them. They'd entered into the Shekinah glory cloud and they were frightened, flat on their face. Jesus comes and He touches them. He says it's time to go, and the cloud is gone and there is Jesus, the son of man, as they know him—familiar, safe, secure again.

He says, "Let's go down to the valley." It says they saw Jesus only. We need to climb our worship mountain so we will see Jesus only instead of Jesus and this prophet or Jesus and this religion or Jesus and this method of something that my friend is doing that seems to give her insight, help. Jesus only. Jesus only. Jesus only. There is no other name given among heaven and earth whereby a man must be saved.

"I am God, there is no other, there is no savior without me." Moses and Elijah, great though they were, took a subservient position to the son of man, Jesus of Nazareth. The third time you hear the voice is at the triumphal entry. If you turn to John chapter 12, Jesus has been anointed at Bethany. The next day the great crowds gather: "Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."

Another prophecy they believed was being fulfilled. Crowds very fickle, but at this point they're for Him. Jesus comes riding on the young donkey, as it was said in the scriptures. And then He begins to talk and predict His death. This wouldn't be while He was sitting on the donkey; this would be perhaps at the end. He's alighted off the donkey, the crowd is milling around, the questions again—He's pulled to bits with questions.

The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the people that are plotting His death are there. Jesus says, "The hour has come for the son of man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a corn of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Now my heart is troubled, verse 27. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name."

Then a voice came from heaven: "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. This is my beloved son. Hear him. Look at him. Listen to him." God in human flesh. Of course He was able to say, "I do always those things that please him." Remember He had chosen to live His life in our humanity. The new Adam, the second Adam. He chose to do what He did, laying aside the power He could have used.

He used it for other people's benefit, not His own. He used it to heal, He used it to bless. He used it to underline the fact that He was God, but never for Himself. He laid that ability, though He had it within His grasp to use it, aside. He lived His life as the second Adam with no greater power than the first Adam had to be obedient to God.

Jesus came and lived like you and me with the chance that you and I have to say no to sin. He never sinned, and He pleased God. Now, why did He please God basically? Because of the life He lived, the love He lived, the obedience He practiced, the servant spirit. Jesus was a God-pleaser first and foremost. "I must be about my father's business first."

He wasn't there to please men. He wasn't there to please Himself. He was there to please God. As I apply this to you now, this lesson today, think about it. Open your heart to the Holy Spirit and say, "What are you going to say to me from this lesson that I've read today?" Why wouldn't a holy life please men? Why wasn't Jesus a man-pleaser? Wouldn't you have thought that His life would have pleased people to see the sort of things He was doing?

Wouldn't you have thought everybody would have said, "Well, that's wonderful. That really pleases me"? Well, basically speaking, it was the holiness of His life that displeased people. If you're around somebody that's holy and good, does that make you feel a little bit unholy? Well, just imagine being around Jesus Christ. Remember Peter? "Depart from me, I'm a sinful man, O Lord."

He got a glimpse of the holiness of God, and that makes you feel very uncomfortable. When you feel uncomfortable, you take it out on the person that's making you feel guilty. Guilty quite rightly—he's holy, I'm unholy. So He didn't please men because His holiness kept coming into conflict with their unholiness, specifically with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The holy confronted the unholy.

If we're going to be holy—other, separate, willing servant obedience lifestyle, mindset—then we're going to bump up against people that don't have that mindset, that don't think like we do, that don't live like we do. When that happens, if there is a little holiness about us, it will condemn their unholiness. They won't like it. They will transfer what they don't like to you. They won't like you.

So you'll find that you can't please them no matter what you do. This is inevitable. Jesus said, "I come to bring a sword," not because He wanted to bring a sword, even in families, but because that would be the result. You cannot be a man-pleaser and a God-pleaser at the same time. Sometimes it works out, praise God. For 30 years at Nazareth, it worked out. All men spoke well of Him.

But as soon as He put His foot outside His home, then He ran into a buzzsaw for three years. As soon as He got into His ministry. If Jesus had been a self-pleaser, He would have lived in a big house and not in a Podunk village. He would have moved to Jerusalem, bought an apartment near school of Gamaliel. Instead He said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests. I don't even have a branch to sit on." That's the translation of that passage.

"Foxes have holes. Birds of the air have nests. I can't find a branch to alight that's mine." And if Jesus had come to please Himself, be a self-pleaser, He would have stayed here a little longer than 33 years, I think. That's awfully young to die. And if He'd been a self-pleaser, He would have told the multitude to get lost when they interrupted His vacation, intruding on His privacy.

And if He'd been a self-pleaser, He wouldn't have had Rufus carry His cross; He would have asked him to die on it and He would have gone home saying "good riddance." But thank God Jesus was not a self-pleaser. He didn't live His life for Himself but for God as an obedient son doing the will of His heavenly Father. Should we do less? "Follow me," He said. We can't follow Him around Galilee, but we can follow Him in this: not to be a self-pleaser, but a God-pleaser.

If He'd been a self-pleaser, He'd never have come to earth in the first place. Why leave heaven where He was worshipped to come to earth to be brutally tortured and murdered? If He'd been a self-pleaser, He would have chosen to be born in a palace, not a pigsty. If He'd been a self-pleaser, He would have used His powers for self-advantage. He was not a man-pleaser. He didn't even please His family.

Came a point when they came to get Him and bring Him home. Concerned, yes, but misunderstanding the whole of His crusade and why He was here. It says they came to arrest Him, to put Him in bonds, to constrain Him. They said, "He's out of his mind." His mother said it. His brothers said it. Of course we know in John seven that His brothers did not believe in Him till after the resurrection.

Even His own brothers did not believe in Him—the children of Mary and Joseph that He had grown up with, that He had been the father figure because Joseph had died. They didn't believe in Him. Well, as He says, a prophet isn't accepted in his own hometown, or in his own home-home sometimes. And you won't be a man-pleaser perhaps in your own family, and there are many reasons for that.

One day the brothers will understand. And one day the sisters will understand. And one day the husbands will understand. I remember my mother dying, and the day after the funeral, I woke up with an incredible light heart. I thought, isn't that funny? The day after my mother has died, and she died in Christ—she accepted the Lord two days before she died. The day after my mother died, I woke up saying, "Now she understands."

Because all my life she had never understood. She never read a book, I don't think, that I wrote. She certainly never heard me speak or stood pre-preached. And yet here she goes to heaven, and I can't understand this lightness, and suddenly I realize that she is in heaven and she's saying, "Oh Jill, now I understand." One day, like James and Jude who wrote two books in the Bible—two brothers of Jesus—like the other brothers and sisters and mother, they would be in the upper room together and they would understand.

Maybe you're going to have to wait a little while, like till eternity perhaps. So pleasing God starts with a decision to please Him first. This huge desire to say it and mean it: "I do always those things that please him." I will please God if I make this my goal, my focus, to be a God-pleaser and not a self-pleaser or a man-pleaser. I will try to be like Jesus who brought delight to His Father's heart by a holy life, an obedient lifestyle, a servant spirit.

The cost for us might be the same as for Him, in some measure: suffering. He said, "How will you my pupils be above me? If this is what they did to me, what they going to do to you?" We can expect suffering. But God will sense our heartbeat as He sensed His Son's, and He will affirm us. We will hear within our spirits, "Thou art my beloved son. In you I'm well pleased."

Do you know you're loved of God? Do you know He appreciates that huge effort you made last week to do something that only you knew how hard it was to do for Jesus? What you've got to do is learn how to hear Him say, "I'm pleased with you. Thank you. You're my beloved son, and I'm well pleased with you." Even if they're not pleased with you, even if they're mad with you, I'm pleased with you.

If you will learn to get your affirmation from Him, whatever the church says, whatever the family says, whatever society says—only to be concerned with what He says. Then you will know as Jesus did that loved feeling. "I do always those things that please him. I am loved of my father. This is my son in whom I delight." God delights in you if you seek to serve Him. I know many of you; you seek with all your heart to serve Him. God is delighted with you. He loves you for that. He thanks you today. He just says thank you. I'm pleased with you.

Let's pray together. Oh Lord, thank you for this word, thank you for your life, thank you for these Gospels, thank you that we can see you there, that we can meet you there, that we can realize Jesus that you were indeed the son of God and son of man. We repudiate the devil and all his works, Lord—the devil that tells people in their hearts and minds that you were not divine.

God, you sent Jesus. You came in Jesus. You were reconciling the world to yourself in Jesus. As Christians, we need to take our stand firmly on the deity of Christ, and we do today and we say we believe. As we see you coming out of the waters, our hearts are touched because we know you are identifying with the death that one day you would die as you went under the waters. You were saying, "I came to do this for you. And one day, God will not be well pleased with me when I hang on the cross. He will turn his face away because I'm going to come and bear your sin, and he cannot look upon sin."

Lord, help us to be so reduced to size by what you did for us that we will live our lives saying not only "I must be about my father's business," but "I always seek to please him. I do always, not sometimes, not on good days—I always seek to please him." Help us to be God-pleasers first and not self-pleasers, not church-pleasers, not family-pleasers even, but God-pleasers. Some of that will please all those people, and some of it will not. Help us to be obedient, true servants. We ask it that your kingdom may come in the hearts of our friends and those that we love. For Christ's sake, amen.