Matthew 3:16–17Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 3. Yeah, I can't do it. We'll look at verse 16 and 17, finishing out chapter 3. We'll move into chapter 4 next week.
It says as when Jesus was baptized 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 of heaven said this is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased.
I love this scene because we get to get a picture of what it is for things to begin to open up. Now, it speaks directly to the fact that the heavens opened and we've heard many sermons probably talking about living under an open heavens.
But there's a lot of things that are opening up to us through Christ's obedience, through his righteousness, through his life lived in this text. And I don't want you to miss out on that. And the importance of something being opened is it gives you access to something. Now, I like to have access to my kids' room. I don't really not really a fan when they close the door.
Parents, can you understand that? I don't know why. I just have an issue with closing the door. Now that they're older, when they hit reach a certain age, you can close the door, but I always have access to the door. So, never lock the door.
Introduction
I'll take the hinges off the door. Are you with me? Right. Because I want access to that room at any given moment. I think that's important. Privacy is important, too. You know, write me a letter, talk to me about your privacy, but I want access. And most of us are that way. We don't like things being closed off to us.
We like things being open to us. If it is closed, you're locked out. If the hospital's open, you can go into the hospital and you can find the healing that you need. But if it's closed, where do you go? If the bank is open, you can go into the bank, you can withdraw some funds, and you can get the funds you need or the resources you need to purchase what you need to purchase.
But if the bank is closed, how many of you have ever had a time where the bank is closed and you needed to make a transaction, but you couldn't make a transaction. Let me move it out of the bank because now we have ATM. See, I'm I'm still in the '9s, but we're now in 2025. So, let me move this to you.
You have medicine you need, but it's the weekend and they's closed. You don't have access to a pharmacy. Now, I'm specifically sensitive to that because I just had surgery. Samantha just recently had surgery and we understand the importance of getting access to the medication you need, right? That's important. And I can think of many other things that particularly are closed that you need access to.
And don't you hate it when it's the weekend and that's the one time you need it all of a sudden? And everything seems to be closed. And so what happened in the beginning all the way if we travel all the way back in Scripture all the way back to Genesis, one of the things we began to see right the very beginning as that
Sin enters the world and closes off access to everything God intended for us to have access to.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 4:00
The garden is closed for business. Not only that, he puts cherubam in front of it with flaming swinging swords to keep you out of it because he don't want you to have access to that.
You know what caused that lack of access in Scripture? Sin. And so you need to understand that before we enter into the baptism waters, before we take a glimpse at Jesus and we see what he's trying to accomplish here, you need to understand that his entrance into the baptism waters is not just a sign that he is righteous.
It's not just a sign that he can be obedient. It's not just an image imagery of his ability to follow the word of God,
But this is him providing access for you where sin closed the door.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 4:51
And things are opening up here. And it is more than just the heavens. Access is important. But if you're closed, but if something's closed, you're stuck outside. And from Genesis 3 onward, humanity has lived in a world closed of closed things. The garden was closed, the ground is cursed, the heavens were shut, the veil sealed, the voice silent, the sun veiled all through the Old Testament.
And sin locks the doors of blessing, of communion, and of life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:38
That's what sin does. That's what sin does today.
It closes off access. It breaks down communion. It breaks apart relationships. It destroys.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:51
And what you used to have access to, you no longer have access to. If you don't believe it's true, just talk to a marriage where infidelity is present.
What once was open now becomes closed. That's the work of sin. But in Matthew 3:16-17, which we just read, Jesus steps into the Jordan and suddenly things begin to open. Here's what opens. Here's my here's my points real quick. Just right here. The water opens, the spirit opens, the heaven opens, the voice opens, the son opens.
Everything that was closed begins to break wide open in Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:44
That's the key.
See, everybody wants a breakthrough nowadays, but they want a breakthrough their way. The only way you get a breakthrough in your life is through Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:53
He's the one that breaks through closed things. The passage is not just about baptism, although it is. It's not just about baptism.
It's about breakthrough.
It is the announcement that what sin closed, Christ has opened.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:21
And now we have access even on the weekend. It's 24-hour access. It's all the time access. You have access.
It's eternal access. Not even death can take this access away. That's good news.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:35
So, let's go through them and let's just kind of take a peek.
And this will be real quick. Take a peek because the Scripture does the work and I don't need to belabor it.
Point 1The water: sin-stained becomes Christ-cleaned
Point one, the water. Let's look at the water. How does the water open? The water sin stained becomes Christcleaned. The water which was once stained now becomes Christ cleaned. Sin is a stain. I just said that like a like I was from the south. Sin is a stain. It's a stain.
Sin is a flood. Sin pollutes what God made pure.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:28
The flood once all the way back in the Old Testament drowned everything because of sin. God sent a flood on the earth and he destroyed everything. It drowned the world. But it ne but it was incapable of drowning sin. Track with me here. Stay with me for a while. Just stick with me for a bit. The Red Sea swallowed Pharaoh.
We recently learned in Exodus. And all of his army and swallowed up all of his army and all of Pharaoh. But it could not swallow up rebellion.
The priest basin washed the skin, but it never cleansed the conscience.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 9:27
It's a superficial cleansing. The true issue that brought the need for cleansing was never actually resolved in the Old Testament.
There was constant cleansing through floods and through Red Sea and through priest basin. The Jordan carried filth downream, but it never carried guilt away.
And so there was repeated cleansings necessary in the water.
Water always washed, but it never truly cleansed.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:08
Everything sin touched, it defiled. But then Jesus shows up. Into the Jordan steps the sinless sun.
Into the muddy current steps the spotless lamb. And when he rose up from the water, he sanctified the waters. He made the rivers preach.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:29
One day a greater washing is coming.
Not of body only, but of the soul, not of the surface, but of the conscience.
When the flood judged, Jesus saved. Where ritual washed, Jesus cleansed. Where water only pointed, his blood fulfilled.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:52
The stain is gone now through Christ. The filth is cleansed. The conscience is made new.
And the lamb who stood in the water now makes you whiter than snow when you come through it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 11:14
Point 2The Spirit once departing now resting
Number two, the spirit once departing now resting. I love this because to truly capture all that's happening in Scripture here in this text as we see Christ come into the baptism water, you have to peer back into the Old Testament to understand what sin has done in the world and what has been closed off to us, what we don't have access to.
Now get a picture of what Christ is opening to us. If you go back to the you need to know that regarding the spirit, sin is a griever of the spirit.
Wherever sin is present, the spirit is grieved.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:10
Sin is a quencher of the things of God. That which he hopes you walk in is quenched when you walk in sin and not in Christ.
And sin drives the spirit away. Yet with Christ, this picture of Christ as he walks into the waters and the heavens open, we see the spirit descending and resting and staying.
If you go back to the Old Testament, right, you see the flood, you see Noah release a raven and then release a dove. One of the one of the flights of the dove flies off and comes back with an olive branch, but it returns because much of the earth is still flooded except for the treetops.
And so he snatches up a branch and he brings it back, but there's no place for him to truly rest his feet and remain. So Noah then knows that it's not ready for us to depart the ark. Because it's still flooded. But then again, he sends out the dove. Sorry, I'm a little off script here, but just track with me.
He sends off the dove, and the second time, the dove does not return. And we don't see the dove again until Matthew 3 when he rests on Christ. Are you with me today?
But everything the spirit in the Old Testament for instance the spirit rushed on Samson in the Old Testament. But then Samson fell and the spirit departed. The spirit came on Saul but Saul disobeyed and the spirit left. David cried, "Take not your spirit from me." Because he knew the risk of disobedience. Prophets felt the spirit's fire, but only for a moment, a season, a task, but then it lifted.
The spirit touched, but never rested. Everything sin touched it scattered.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:27
But then at the Jordan in Matthew 3, the spirit came down like a dove and he did not leave. He did not just visit, he abides.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:37
The spirit that once lifted now lingers. The spirit that once flickered now flames forever in Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:54
Where Samson lost him, Jesus holds him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 15:04
Where Saul was abandoned, Jesus is anointed. Where David feared, Jesus secured. What was fleeting in the Old Testament has become forever in the New Testament. And specifically in Christ, we now see in Christ, the spirit rests, the spirit abides, the spirit remains.
The same spirit who stayed on Jesus now lives in you who put your faith in Jesus.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 15:28
That's good news.
Point 3The heavens once shut now open
Point three, the heavens once shut, now open.
Sin is the thief. Sin is a lock. Sin shuts what God once opened.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 15:49
The garden was closed. Adam used to walk in the garden with God. But when he fell, the gate slammed shut and the sword of fire stood guard. The ground was cursed. It once gave freely of fruit. Now it fights you with sweat and with thorns.
Communion was cut off. Isaiah said, "Your sins have separated you from God. The heavens were closed. The prophets cried that their prayers hit brass ceilings to a closed heaven. The veil was closed. Only one man once a year, trembling, blood and hand could inch his way into the Holiest of Holies in God's presence.
One man once a year. The book was sealed. Eyes blind, ears dull, hearts hardened. The tomb was shut and it was sealed and it was closed off. Generation after generation under the weight of death, everything sin touches it closes.
But then in the waters of the Jordan, the sky opened, the spirit descended, the father declared, the sun stood dripping, radiant and anointed.
That was only the beginning. When the garden closed, Jesus is the way back to the father and communion with him.
Where the ground was cursed, he wore thorns and turned the curse into a blessing.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:40
Where communion was cut off, he tore the veil and gave us bold access into the Holies of Holies.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:46
Where the heaven was brass, he split them open and poured out his spirit on Christ.
Where the book was sealed, the lion of Judah broke the seals. And where the tomb was locked, the stone rolled away.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:00
Do you see an opening to that which was once closed by sin?
Everything sin closed, Christ opened. The garden is open. The ground will yield fruit. You are the good ground, by the way.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:23
You used not to be able to produce fruit but just thorns and thistles. But now the good ground, those who were in Christ and made a new creation and soft tender soil of the heart can produce fruit that it never used to produce because he's opening things that were once closed.
And communion is restored. The heavens are open. The veil has been torn. The book is unsealed. The tomb is empty and the king, the beloved son, stands in the river inviting you to step in under an open sky of grace.
Point 4The voice once silent now speaking
Number four, the voice once silent because of sin, now speaking.
Sin is a silencer. Sin is static. Sin muffles the word.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:33
For 400 years between Malachi and Matthew, heaven was silent and God said nothing.
No prophet thundered, no oracle echoed, no fresh word came down. For 400 years between Malachi and Matthew, there was silence.
Even before Isaiah said the vision came to him like a sealed scroll, unreadable.
The voice of God that once walked with Adam and spoke to him daily was now but a distant memory.
Everything sin touched he muted. But then in the Jordan heaven broke its silence. Not with thunder, not with an angel, not with the prophet. The father himself spoke, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased."
Where silence reigned, a word resounded. Where prophecy ceased, revelation returned. Where men strained to hear, God declared plainly.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:11
The silence is broken. In Christ, the word has come in Christ.
The voice of the father still speaks through the son. And those who have ears to hear can live again.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:36
Point 5The Son once hidden now revealed
Number five, the son. Once hidden, now revealed.
Sin is the veil. Sin is a shadow. Sin conceals the glory of Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:58
In Genesis, he was promised as the seed of a woman. In Exodus, he's hinted in the lamb's blood. In Leviticus, he's shadowed in sacrifice. In numbers, the bronze serpent lifted high. In prophets, glimpsed as the coming servant, the branch, the king, always there, but never fully seen.
But then at the Jordan, the father pointed at his son and said, "This is my son, not a shadow.
But a substance.
Not a type, but truth. Not a promise, but a fulfillment. Not concealed, but revealed.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 23:01
Where once hidden, now declared. Where once whispered, now shouted. Where once shadowed now shining, the mystery is revealed.
The sun is now known. The Christ has come and in him the father is pleased.
At the Jordan we see it all. The water sanctified, the spirit abiding, the heavens opened, the voice speaking, and the sun revealed.
This is the day when everything sin closed, Christ opened.
And if you are in him, you're not shut out either or cursed or silenced or hidden.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:18
You're washed in Christ. You're spiritfilled in Christ. Heaven opened, word hearing, son redeemed.
The stain is gone. The spirit rests. The heavens are open. The silence is broken. And the sun is revealed.
For those who put their faith in Christ, what sin closed, Christ opens for you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:02
And I don't know where you are, but Christ does.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:22
Christ does.
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