[0:00] You ever heard of the phrase, it's not about what you know, it's about who you know? I had a little bit of experience with that one time in my life that I can recall.
[0:13] When I was going to college, after I graduated from high school, I had been planning on going to the University of Cincinnati for nuclear engineering. And that summer, I was a new Christian my senior year of high school.
[0:27] I had just become a Christian just before the school year started. And when that summer, I went to freshman orientation and sat there and learned about my schedule and my roommate and all of that kind of stuff.
[0:45] And then that night, I was still there in Cincinnati. I just had this sense that this is not what God wanted me to do. And I wasn't used to that kind of getting direction from God.
[1:00] And I felt like he wanted me to go into ministry. And I didn't know what that meant or what that would look like. But I went home after freshman orientation and I told my parents and they were upset with me.
[1:13] And then my dad went to work the next Monday and told his foreman what had happened.
[1:25] And my dad's foreman is the one who led my dad to the Lord and who led me to the Lord on a golf course that previous summer. And he had a college in mind.
[1:37] It was one that he had sent his kids to. And so without asking, he called the college and made an appointment for me to go and visit.
[1:49] Because I was going to be a Bible major going into the ministry. And that was a college that specialized or had that as one of its majors. And so he told my dad the next day.
[2:01] And then my dad told me. And I was like, huh. I didn't think I was going to be able to go to college this fall because colleges were already getting started.
[2:13] But the college that this was, that he was contacting, didn't start until the end of September. Instead of most colleges starting at the end of August. And so started the application.
[2:26] Actually, we went down there and visited and started the application process and had no idea. I figured I wouldn't get in anyway by fall quarter.
[2:38] And because it was too late and too many hoops to jump through and all of the stuff that would be necessary. We went back again because the college was holding a golf tournament.
[2:49] And I was going to be going out for the golf team. And so it would be good if I went and played in this tournament. And so I went and I played. And I did pretty well.
[3:01] And there was a man there on the putting green that I was introduced to. Turns out he was the head of the communications department at the college.
[3:12] And he asked me. He took kind of a keen interest in me. And I wasn't sure why. Someone must have told him my story. And shook his hand. And he asked me.
[3:24] Have you heard about your acceptance yet? Whether you've gotten in. I said no. No, I haven't. Matter of fact, there's a couple of pieces of my application that haven't even been turned in yet. Like transcripts from high school and things like that.
[3:37] And he said, I'll see what I can do. I didn't know what that meant until later that afternoon when we got home. And my mother said that she had received a phone call saying that I had been accepted.
[3:53] So that was quite interesting. I ended up living. They had a dorm that was an old apartment complex. And I was in the kitchen. My dorm room was in the kitchen of that old apartment complex.
[4:05] But I got in. And the rest is history as it was. And it turned out pretty well. I met Sherry there. So that was a good thing.
[4:16] And in a way, at least from human perspective, so it was with Jesus. I mean, if you look at Jesus, just again from outward appearances, he had no power, no station in life.
[4:36] He grew up in a poor family, a very poor family, in a very poor part of town, if you will. Actually, the whole town, Nazareth, was known for its poverty. And just because it was backwards.
[4:49] It was out in the country kind of a thing. And nobody respected anything coming out of Nazareth. And he grew up working with his father as a carpenter.
[5:00] And so even just maybe a few days before the scene that we're going to be looking at today, the baptism of Jesus, it wouldn't have been much longer or much before that time that he would have washed his hands and all the calluses from working with wood and hardened hands and everything that went with that.
[5:25] And he laid his tools aside and went to meet John the Baptist down by the river. And that's where we find ourselves today.
[5:37] And his baptism happened. And then everything changed. Some people would say this baptism was his first public appearance, his first public ministry. But perhaps it would be best to say it as it was his last private moment before he would be introduced to the world as the king of Israel, as the Messiah.
[6:01] There are two main tensions in our passage for today. One has to do with this baptism. John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. So why would Jesus submit to that since Jesus was without sin?
[6:17] And then secondly, concerning his genealogy, we're going to take a look at that today as well. The question there is why is it located where it's at? It doesn't come at the beginning of the gospel like Matthew's genealogy does.
[6:32] And then another part of that is why is it different from Matthew's genealogy? And we'll see what that's about as well. So Luke chapter 3 verses 19 and 20 is where we're starting today.
[6:48] And we'll go from there. But Herod the Tetrarch, who had been reproved by John the Baptist for Herodias, his brother's wife.
[6:59] So this was Herodias had gone to his brother Philip's for a visit, saw Herodias there, his wife. They began an affair.
[7:09] They ended up, she ended up leaving Philip and marrying Herod. So not only was he marrying his brother's wife, she was also his niece.
[7:19] Herodias. So go figure. No wonder the family is kind of weird. And for all the evil things that Herod had done, Herod added to this, to them all, this next thing that he was about to do, that he locked up John in prison.
[7:38] And so that was the end of John's ministry. But what Luke is doing is calling to attention to his readers what had happened. And he's going to get to the specifics about it later on.
[7:50] And so we're going to pick up that part of the story later on in Luke's gospel. But he's just reminding us what had happened to John before he moves on to the current part of the story.
[8:03] Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, there's a couple things I want to note here. First of all, Jesus didn't show up privately to John and just get baptized privately.
[8:18] He basically stood in line with the rest of all of the throngs of people that were there to be baptized and was baptized among them or after them.
[8:29] So there was a crowd there to see, to be a witness of his baptism. And then he himself was baptized and he was praying. And Luke is one of the things that's unique about his gospels is how often he talks about Jesus praying.
[8:45] And we don't have that in the other three gospels where in this moment at this scene that Jesus was praying. And so he's praying during this time.
[8:56] And the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And this is a kind of an interesting point to make here is that it says that it's like a dove.
[9:16] And if you remember anything about ninth grade English, you will remember that like a or as a is a form of speech called a simile. So the question becomes, are all the depiction of the Holy Spirit looking like a dove accurate?
[9:34] No. And I hate to disappoint all the Jesus junk makers that are out there. It wasn't a dove that descended on Jesus.
[9:47] It was he came and descended on him in the same fashion that a dove would. Not that he was looking like a dove. We don't know what that looks like.
[9:59] What the Holy Spirit in bodily form, what would that look like? We don't know. Luke doesn't tell us. None of the other gospel writers tell us that. But this is this is what happened, that he descended on him, however, a dove might descend out of the sky.
[10:14] And a voice from heaven came out. You are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased. And that's the part we're going to spend a little bit of time on as we make our way through the text.
[10:27] But the first thing you'll notice on your notes is we're going to talk about the significance of this phrase that he says. You are my son. The declaration that Jesus was his son is a messianic phrase.
[10:43] It is a messianic Jesus is the Messiah designation that we hear from God the Father spoken in this moment.
[10:56] You'll also notice that this moment is a depiction of the Trinity. You have God the Father who splits heaven open and you have the Holy Spirit descending like a dove.
[11:10] You have God the Father again speaking to the Son saying, you are my son. In other words, you are the Messiah. You are the one who has been prophesied about from years past.
[11:23] And here is where I want to show you where that comes from before I get to 2 Samuel chapter 7. In Israel's history, they went for a long time, hundreds of years, without a king.
[11:39] After they came up out of Egypt, out of the captivity in Egypt and slavery in Egypt, and they were given this promised land and they went in under Joshua and conquered the land.
[11:56] And then after Joshua's time of ruling over the nation, they were ruled by a series of judges. The book of Judges covers that.
[12:08] And it was not a good time in history for Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. It was, they went up and they went down and they went up and they went down. They served God for a while and then they quit God for a while.
[12:21] And then they served God for a while and then they walked away again. And it was back and forth, back and forth. Finally, by the time you get to the end of the book of Judges, the people are clamoring for a king. They're looking at their neighbors and they say, hey, these other neighboring territories and countries around us, they have kings.
[12:38] These cities have kings. Why don't we have a king? We want a king. And God was their king. And so when the prophet comes to the Lord and says, hey, what do we do with this?
[12:54] God says, let them be, let them have a king. Let them see what that's going to mean. And it wouldn't be a good thing. But they got their king.
[13:05] And the first king that they got was King Saul. And King Saul was taller and better looking than all the other guys in Israel. And so he wasn't chosen because of that, but it seems that way.
[13:19] But Saul failed. Saul did not serve God. Saul disobeyed God. And because of that, the text talks about how the Holy Spirit was removed from him.
[13:32] He was anointed as king in the beginning. The Holy Spirit came upon him to serve as king. And then because of his disobedience, God removed his Holy Spirit from him.
[13:45] Now this is something that you and I cannot experience. Because in the New Testament, the way the Holy Spirit works is different than how he worked in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit was given for certain tasks.
[13:58] The Holy Spirit was anointed, or Holy Spirit anointed people for certain tasks or for their role as prophet or as king. And so when God removed his Holy Spirit away from Saul, then it became incumbent on Samuel then to pick another king.
[14:14] Actually, it wasn't Samuel who was picking. He was just following God's direction and to whom? To anoint to be the next king. And then you might be familiar with him going to Jesse's house and all the other sons.
[14:28] And this must be this one, must be this. No, no, no. Do you not have one more son? Yes, we have one more son. He's out with the sheep. Bring him in. Of course, David comes in. And he is anointed king.
[14:41] And then during his reign as king, God makes a covenant with David. It's known as the Davidic covenant, conveniently.
[14:52] And it is this part of the covenant that I want to show you. Again, talking about the significance of this phrase, my son. So 2 Samuel chapter 7 and verse 10.
[15:06] And I will appoint a place. We're kind of coming at this midstream here. I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more.
[15:24] I want you to keep this in the context of, as well, current day Israel. Israel is not living in a place where they're not disturbed any longer. They are very disturbed, and that's going to be their history again until this prophecy about the coming Messiah comes to pass.
[15:42] Violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. That hasn't happened yet.
[15:53] They had it for a short time under David and Solomon, but it hasn't happened forever, which as we'll see is the promise, hasn't happened yet.
[16:05] When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, that's talking about the death of David, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
[16:16] There's a sense here where he's talking about a short-term prophecy in his son Solomon, and then a long-term prophecy about the coming Messiah. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
[16:34] And again, we have not yet seen that come to pass, this covenant. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
[16:45] This is where we get this language about this is my son, my beloved son. So this is God the Father at the baptism of Jesus declaring the deity of Jesus, that he is the Messiah, that he is the king of Israel, promised to David back here in 2 Samuel chapter 7.
[17:07] When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the son of men. And immediately, I'm thinking, hmm, this can't be Jesus.
[17:18] Who is this talking about? Well, it is Jesus. But as you may know, Jesus did not commit any iniquity. So how could this be Jesus? But you remember that when he went to the cross, he was declared guilty.
[17:34] He paid for, literally, sins of all mankind from beginning to the end of creation.
[17:46] Paid for all of my sins, all of your sins, past, present, and future. So while he didn't commit the sin, he was guilty as if he did commit the sin.
[17:58] And so he suffered the consequence of that. He disciplined with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men. But my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.
[18:14] Now, this couldn't be a reference to Solomon. I read some commentary where, well, this was Saul. But there's no period in Solomon's history where he was beaten with rods and with the stripes of the son of man.
[18:28] So who is it talking about? It's talking about Messiah. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. And your throne shall be established forever.
[18:41] Certainly that wasn't true with Solomon either. But it will be true when the Messiah comes again to fulfill all of his covenant with David.
[18:53] So that's a part of it. And then there's also this aspect of it in Psalm 2, where, again, the text says there, As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.
[19:07] I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, You are my son. Today have I begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.
[19:18] You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Again, that's a reference to the coming of Messiah. For us, it would be the second coming of Messiah.
[19:30] When he comes again, and these things will come to pass. And his covenant that he made with David will be brought to pass. So this expression of my beloved son, you are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased.
[19:48] That expression then on your notes, you are my beloved son, designated Jesus as the king of Israel, as did the expression with you I am well pleased.
[19:59] So we have that statement, and we need to understand what that statement was a reference to. It wasn't just a familial expression. As a matter of fact, it is heresy.
[20:13] It is false teaching to say that Jesus is the literal son of God the Father. Because Jesus himself has existed in time past and eternity.
[20:26] He wasn't created. He wasn't born in the sense of when we have a son or a daughter, that daughter or son is born of us. Jesus is not born in the same way, humanly speaking, in the flesh he was.
[20:42] Jesus being both God and man. And that's confusing because we tend to mix them up. We tend to integrate them. But we need to remember that he is fully God and fully man.
[20:56] And so some of his experiences as man, yes, he was born of a woman. But he was not born of man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Even though he was born of a woman, physically, he has existed in eternity past.
[21:14] We see him in the Old Testament, expressions of him in the Old Testament. And so it's hard for us to see how both of those things can be in the one person.
[21:26] But that's one of the things that is miraculous about our Savior, is that he is both God and man at the same time. So in a single expression, we can have expressions of his humanity and his deity at the same time.
[21:41] And this is kind of what we have in this expression here. Again, this expression is also a fulfillment of what the angel told Mary.
[21:52] Luke chapter 1. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord will give him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.
[22:04] And of his kingdom there will be no end. So we see Jesus, even the angel telling Mary, this is who, this Jesus that you have now conceived in your womb of the Holy Spirit.
[22:17] This is who is now in your womb. So we have this thing that's happening with Jesus being baptized by John.
[22:30] And the question is why? Why did he do it? Why did he do it? Why did he do it? Why did he do it? Why did he do it? But John's baptism was a baptism for repentance of sin.
[22:45] So Jesus didn't have any sin to repent of. So why did he do this? What was the purpose of this? And there's three things that you have on your notes there where we talk about this.
[22:55] It was God's plan that Jesus be identified with John's message. And this is one of the purposes for baptism, even for you and I. Baptism is identification.
[23:09] So while Jesus here is identified with John's ministry, John's message, when you and I are baptized, we are identified with Christ. Particularly, we are identified with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
[23:24] So our baptism is different from John's baptism. And so we need to keep that in mind. But it's still an identification. And Jesus is wanting to identify with John's ministry in a sense to validate his ministry.
[23:40] Also as a way to identify himself with sinners. He came for sinners. And so this is a part of what he is doing in John's baptism.
[23:53] Matthew chapter 3 speaks to this issue as well. Here is Matthew's description. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John the Baptist to be baptized by him.
[24:07] And John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you. And you're coming to me? And it didn't make sense to John the Baptist to be baptizing Jesus because he knew Jesus would be the Messiah, that he was the Messiah, that he would be without sin.
[24:24] And John is saying, whoa, wait a minute. But Jesus tells him this. Jesus answered him, let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.
[24:39] In other words, this is a way of Jesus saying this was God's plan. This is God's will. This is what God wants for me to be baptized with you, for me to identify with your ministry, with this message of repentance.
[24:55] And that I am declaring the one that you were preparing the way for, I am that one. So Jesus' baptism was the way he was introduced to the world as Israel's Messiah.
[25:16] Behold the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world. And then John 1.31. John 1.31.
[25:53] He received the blessing of his father at this baptism. He received the blessing of his father at this baptism. And again, we have this phrase, you are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.
[26:08] This is the blessing. The blessing is something that is spoken, something that is given to one who comes next. God gives us blessing.
[26:21] Here God the father is saying to the son, my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. As parents, when we look at this blessing, I think it would be appropriate for us to learn of the relationship between God the father and the son.
[26:37] And for us as fathers. And so, men, I think I'm speaking a little bit more directly to you. I think this fits for mothers as well. But men, we certainly ought to learn what it means to speak a blessing to our families, to the people that we love, to the people that we care about.
[26:56] Just a little interesting piece of trivia about this. Any of you Star Trek fans? A few Star Trek fans in the crowd?
[27:08] Okay. The little thing that Spock, when I say Spock, does everybody know who I'm talking about? There was a particular episode.
[27:20] There's a particular episode where the producers came to him and said, hey, we need you to come up with a sign or something as a blessing, as a Vulcan blessing.
[27:35] And so, when he was trying to figure out what he would do, he was actually Jewish. And so, he went to his Jewish background and he recalled a blessing that the rabbis would give at the synagogue.
[27:49] And it included that symbol. So, the V, which stood for the Hebrew letter Shin, which stood for the name Shaddai, El Shaddai, Almighty God.
[28:05] And the rabbis would speak a blessing over their gathering. And so, I'm not saying that you need to do that with your kids.
[28:17] But I would say, that was just for fun. I would say this, that we ought to follow the example of God the Father. And look at the three elements of this blessing that he gives to his son.
[28:33] The first is acceptance. And I hope you fathers get the importance of this.
[28:46] Get the significance of this. Acceptance. You are my son. Now, the Father is declaring. You are my son.
[28:58] You are mine. Right now. And there's a sense where we need to be saying that to the people that we love.
[29:12] To our wives. To our children. You're mine. And I want you to notice the significance of where this statement comes in. You are mine right now.
[29:24] Before you accomplish anything. At this point. Jesus hasn't done anything. There's no ministry yet.
[29:36] No miracles. No preaching. No nothing. And so, dads, again, for us to declare to our children.
[29:49] To our sons. You're mine. You're mine now. Before you ever do anything. I'm not expecting you to get perfect grades. I'm not expecting you to do well in sports.
[30:01] I'm not. The acceptance is unconditional. And as fathers, we need to demonstrate that. We need to speak that. To our children.
[30:13] The second part of this is the love part. You are loved. And I'm going to show you this same phrase here from the NIV.
[30:27] The NIV reads it. Instead of you are my beloved son. You are my son whom I love. It's also a valid translation of that from the Greek. God the Father is willing to say to his son.
[30:40] I love you. And that is something that we need to, as fathers, demonstrate to our kids. To speak that to our kids.
[30:52] Let me ask the question because this is sometimes the question fathers ask. Did God the Father really have to say it? Didn't Jesus know that he was loved? Don't my kids know that I love them?
[31:05] Doesn't my wife know that I love her? Do they want to hear it? Yeah. Yeah. They do. They need to hear it. They need to hear it.
[31:17] So he said it anyway. And that's a part of what made it a blessing. If you seriously take your son, your daughter, your wife, and you set them aside, you take them aside, and you speak to them, and you look them in the eye, and you say, I love you.
[31:42] And I'm guilty of this too. So this is not the, hey, we're having a phone call right now. We're just quick going over some details.
[31:53] Love you. Click. And so I've done my obligation of saying I love you. You know, I'm not buying that. I do that too.
[32:04] But I got to say, it's not enough. I mean, it's great that you're doing it. I'm not telling you to stop doing it. But there need to be moments, special moments, where you pull one of your kids aside, or you pull your wife aside, or your husband, and you say.
[32:23] Put the word I in front of it. Don't be afraid to do that. Why are we afraid to say the word I love you, as opposed to just love you? It's a pet peeve of mine, even though I'm guilty of it.
[32:36] So if you catch me, I love you. And see if that makes a difference. See if that makes a difference in how they receive it, in the dynamic of the relationship.
[32:53] We need that. We need that kind of affirmation. I'm not saying that Jesus needed, he was not in need of anything.
[33:04] But here from a human perspective, I'm guessing as Jesus came up out of the water, as he is praying, and this experience of the heavens opening, and this voice from heaven.
[33:22] And when we hear God speak, it's like thunderous. It is loud. The crowd would have heard this. This is my son.
[33:36] This is my beloved son. I love him. And don't you think from a human perspective, that made Jesus feel good.
[33:47] Is it okay for us to say that? We forget sometimes that he's fully human. Yes, he's fully God. But he experienced humanity in the same way that we do.
[34:01] And so for him, to have this kind of, we can call it emotion. And he had that.
[34:14] He also had this last one here. Encouragement. Again, we need to hear this.
[34:26] Your kids need to hear this. Encouragement. Encouragement. With you, son, I am well pleased. I remember along the same time frame of when I was going to college, the pastor of the church that I was going to had asked me to preach.
[34:53] As soon as, I don't know if it was wise for him to do this, but as soon as I made this declaration that I'm called to the ministry, he's like, hey, you want to preach two Sundays from now?
[35:04] I don't remember if it was the next Sunday or two Sundays from now, but I'm hoping he gave me more of the time than, you know, just a week. But he said, next Sunday, I'm going to be out of town.
[35:16] You got both Sunday morning and Sunday night service. Back in the days when we had Sunday morning and Sunday night services. So I'm like, okay, so I'm going to preach two services in, you know, less than two weeks.
[35:30] Yay. I had no clue what I was doing. Nobody had sat me down and said, even here's how you study your Bible, let alone prepare for a sermon.
[35:41] So I did the best I could. I got some books and I did some studying and I did the best that I could. And my dad wasn't there.
[35:54] My dad wasn't there because of the Ford plant he was working at. They were working overtime, seven days a week. And he had to work that Sunday morning.
[36:06] And so I was bummed. I was bummed by that. He was bummed. He didn't show it. He didn't say it, but he wasn't going to be there.
[36:18] I found out sometime later, this is probably a year or two later, that when the time came for the service to start, the Ford plant was probably 10 minutes down the road from where the church building was.
[36:36] When the time came for the service to start, his boss, who had led him to the Lord, led me to the Lord, let my dad go. And he was in the foyer, looking through the small window of the door as his son was preaching.
[36:56] I never knew that. And then when I found out that he was there and he didn't say anything, but the thing that he did do was there was an usher who was in the foyer.
[37:21] And it was the usher who told me later on that my dad was there. And he said, you could see the pride in my dad's face.
[37:34] And what he said, that's my son. It was just a declaration of, I don't know.
[37:47] I mean, did I need to hear that? Did I need to know that? Apparently I did. So don't let your kids hear it from someone else.
[38:13] Encouragement. And you, I am well pleased. This is God the father here in human terms, cheering on his son. That's all it is.
[38:25] Put it in human terminology. And we need to hear that. We need to hear that from each other. Not just family relationships, but in the body of Christ, in the church, in the family of God.
[38:41] We need to hear that from each other. That we're doing well. That someone notices. Someone cares.
[38:55] Now, we come to the next part of the passage here. And, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this part out loud. Don't do, okay.
[39:15] This is one of the boring parts. It's the genealogy. And, and, and if we're being honest, how often when you're reading through the scriptures, do you see this list of names?
[39:29] How many of you, be honest here, how many of you are going through that list of names and learning how to pronounce every last one of them? Only when Tom sings it.
[39:43] That's true. I get that. Yes. So, we, we know Matthew's begats. We, we don't know anybody else's. There's no, Andrew Peterson apparently hasn't written the song about Luke's begats yet.
[39:58] Somebody should put that request in. But this is where we're at. And, and I'm not going to read through the whole thing now. I guess that's terrible of me.
[40:09] But I'm going to put a couple of, pull a couple of highlights out of the, out of this. Jesus, when he began his ministry was about 30 years of age. So that's an interesting piece of information there.
[40:21] So for the first 30 years, basically he had a career in carpentry, a whole career, probably from his early to mid teens until he's 30.
[40:36] And we don't know when his, his father died, but somewhere in that period, he took over his father's business. We would think. And being, this is interesting, being the son, as it was supposed of Joseph.
[40:50] Remember, Joseph took him on as a father. The people in the community saw Joseph as his father, but he was not literally his father. So that's a part of it.
[41:04] And the next part here, the son of, I'm going to pronounce it this way, because this way, this is where it gets a little confusing. It's his, Joseph's father was Eli. And here it's translated as Eli.
[41:18] That's because these Greek and Hebrew languages had breathing marks. They didn't have the letter H. And so they would have breathing marks. Like, like for instance, the word hallelujah. The word is hallelujah.
[41:31] And then if you read the King James New Testament, when you see the word hallelujah, and you say, what's the difference between hallelujah and hallelujah?
[41:41] Well, hallelujah in the New Testament should have been translated as hallelujah, because the Greek had a little breathing mark over the letter A, letting you know that it's pronounced hallelujah.
[41:54] Ah, it's like oikos. Oikos is a Greek yogurt. Hoikos is a house. We've had a few little trivia.
[42:11] Pieces for you there. So it's the son of Eli. Now what's interesting is Eli or Heli is Joseph's father.
[42:22] But from here on out, he's going to point out, this is Mary's lineage. It's different from Matthew. Matthew's lineage goes through the line of Joseph.
[42:33] Luke's lineage goes through the line of Mary, but was as common to do. In lineages, the names of the females don't come up, except for in Matthew's, because Matthew has an agenda highlighting four particular women, that when you read their names, you're thinking, how in the world did they get in the line of Christ?
[42:54] Because one was like a prostitute, one was an adulterer, one was like a prostitute, And it was Matthew's way, the Lord ultimately driving home the point, that even in the line of Christ, all these different names, all of these different people are all sinners.
[43:14] We're all able to come to receive this forgiveness, because even in the line of Christ, don't you know, these names are here. So starting with Eli, again, they didn't have designation of son-in-law, so Joseph was the son of Eli, even though he is literally the son-in-law, as we would understand it, the son of Eli.
[43:39] Now the rest of these names are going from there, through Mary's lineage, Mathat, and Levi, and middle of the text here, the son of Malay, the son of Mena, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, there he is.
[43:55] That's the linchpin there in the middle, the covenant made to David, and where these lineages have to go through, so that we know that Jesus is of the line of David.
[44:11] That's important. Son of Jesse. Nathan, by the way, that's a different, Joseph's line came through Solomon, Mary's line came through Nathan. The son of Jesse, we know that, son of Obed, the son of Boaz, if you're a fan of the book of Ruth, you know those names.
[44:30] Son of Methuselah, who was, Methuselah was the grandfather of Noah. Methuselah, what's he famous for? He was the oldest guy, oldest, oldest guy.
[44:43] So, and then the son, Methuselah was the son of Enoch, and what's he famous for? He didn't die. He just was taken up into heaven directly. How about that?
[44:54] Wouldn't that be cool? There is a qualification though. You have to walk with God. So, he must have done it pretty well.
[45:08] And then, toward the end there, what's interesting is that Luke goes all the way back to Adam, the son of Seth. Seth replaced who? Abel, remember?
[45:21] Because Cain killed Abel. Yeah. The son of Adam. Adam. Adam is the son of God. I don't know why I like that. But, in the same way, Jesus is also the son of God.
[45:38] But where the first Adam failed, the second Adam, Jesus, succeeded. And that's, that's, that's interesting and it's wonderful.
[45:51] Now, in this section of Luke, I'm going to go through this kind of quickly here. But, in this section of Luke, what Luke is doing is, he's taking these three sections, baptism being the shortest and then the genealogy.
[46:06] Next week, we're going to look at the temptation of Christ. He's taking these three events and proving to his readers, first to Theophilus and ultimately to you and I, he's proving to his readers the kingship of Jesus.
[46:26] Jesus. That's his point. That's why he's putting the genealogy in this section here. Because he's, he's making this case that Jesus is the rightful Messiah, the rightful king of Israel.
[46:42] And so, the baptism of Jesus identified, there's our word again for baptism, identified Jesus as Israel's king. He was declared the son, my beloved son.
[46:57] He had his father's commission and he also had the Spirit's anointing. Again, these are just like Saul had the anointing of the Holy Spirit, just like David had the anointing of God, of the Holy Spirit on them to rule.
[47:13] Jesus also had that. And we see that in the scene of his baptism. In the genealogy, which we just briefly looked at, it showed, this genealogy showed that Jesus had the right lineage.
[47:33] In other words, he is indeed of the throne of David. He belonged to the line of David. That was a requirement. The Pharisees who were tasked with this assignment of recognizing, hey, it's up to you guys.
[47:47] You need to be the ones that recognize that the Messiah is on the scene, that the Messiah has arrived, that he's here. Of course, the Pharisees missed it, but that was part of their task.
[47:58] And so, they basically had to just look at people who would have been ancestors of David, been related to King David from that line.
[48:11] And Jesus, his lineage proved that. And then the temptation of Jesus, which we'll look at next week, proved that Jesus had the godly character to reign.
[48:25] And so, these three items there establishes the kingship of Christ. This is Luke's call for us.
[48:36] And when we put all of this together, you have on your notes three final things. The implications for us. If Jesus really is king, as Luke is careful to prove to us, to his readers, if he really is king, then there are some significances.
[48:56] There are things we ought to pay attention. And here's the first one. We better listen to him carefully. If he's king, don't you think? We ought to listen to him carefully.
[49:07] And do as he commands. And quite frankly, for those who are undecided on the issue, they might consider themselves neutral.
[49:24] Although, don't do that. God doesn't consider you neutral. There is no neutral in God's kingdom. You're either for him or against him. You've either trusted Christ as his savior or you were lost in your sin.
[49:36] There's no in-between here. So, someone who says I'm agnostic, one of the reasons why people put off the decision, one of the reasons why, one of the main reasons why people who are agnostic are agnostic, who say, well, I don't know, has to do with this issue.
[49:54] The reason why they don't know is because they specifically don't want to know. Because as soon as they think about it, as soon as they understand what's at stake, it means that they have to do this.
[50:09] Because if he's really king, if Jesus is really the Lord, well, that means that I have to follow him. I have to. And I have to obey him. And the reason why people put that decision off is because they want to live the way they want to live.
[50:27] they don't want to have someone over them telling them how to live. And so rather than just coming right out in the open and saying it, well, I'm not going to do that today because I don't want to obey God.
[50:44] I want to live like how, have you ever heard someone say that? Maybe occasionally you might hear someone be honest with themselves and say that. But generally speaking, what they say with their mouth is, I don't know if I believe that.
[50:57] I don't know if I'm ready for that. I don't know if I fully subscribe to that. And the reason why they don't is because of this.
[51:09] Generally speaking, not with everyone. Every once in a while you'll come up with someone who's an agnostic and when they're confronted with the truth, they recognize, okay, I need to turn my life over to Christ.
[51:23] That's what I'm called to do. that's when you're confronted with this, Jesus is king. That's the only valid response is to surrender your life to him.
[51:38] Second implication here is Jesus, the king, is coming again and when he comes he's going to do two things. He's going to reward the righteous.
[51:51] righteous. The righteous are you and I not because we have earned the label righteous, we're not, but only because we have the righteousness of Christ and that's what he sees when he looks at us.
[52:06] So we will be rewarded, we'll talk about that in a moment, and he will overcome his enemies. So they will, he will have victory over his enemies.
[52:16] There won't be any enemies left. So that covenant that he made with David, talking about no more enemies, no more violence, no, you know, living in the land of peace forever, that's the fulfillment of the covenant when Jesus comes back and makes all of those things possible.
[52:37] And then specifically for those of us who are followers of Christ, who have trusted in him, when Christ comes as king, all those who have trusted in him will reign with him.
[52:51] We will rule and reign with Christ on this earth. And considering earthly governments compared to this, whoo, this will be a dream.
[53:12] This will be, I'm wondering if we're going to remember earthly governments when we're in heaven. I don't think so. I...
[53:24] understand this, that when you come to the end of your life, just like we talked about at the beginning, it's not about what you know, it's about when you come to the end of your life, it's about who you know, not about what you've done.
[54:00] There's no approaching heaven and saying, well, the reason I'm coming to heaven is because I've been so good. I've done so well, I have earned my reward.
[54:19] No, there won't be anyone able to say that. And it will be all about simply who you know. Rich, what are you doing here in heaven?
[54:31] heaven? And I'm going to look to wherever Jesus is and I'm going to say, him, I'm only here because of him. Now, understand that scene won't happen.
[54:43] That's a fictitious scene. Because when this life is over, you will be either in heaven or in hell. And there won't be any questions for you.
[54:57] You'll just be there when this life is over. But truly, it is simply because you know the Savior.
[55:09] You've trusted him as Lord and Savior and he is with you and he is the one who is our advocate. He's the one who paid the penalty for our sin.
[55:23] He's the one. Just as Luke has been preparing us for all through these first three chapters. It's just preparation.
[55:35] And then beginning in chapter four, we're going to see Jesus one more time confronting Satan and then his public ministry begins.
[55:47] And buckle up. heard this Because it's a lot of fun to read these stories, to understand the ministry of Christ. And it will change your life if you allow the word of God to soak in.
[56:06] So get ready for that. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you. Thank you for the word, even for the genealogies.
[56:20] Because while there might not be much devotional content there, we need these genealogies to learn these simple lessons of who Jesus is and the consequence of our sin and all of the reasons why, as we follow throughout history, you're working.
[56:48] You're making it so. All of these names that we don't know anything about, they're listed there to remind us that you are still working. Even though it seems like it's behind the scenes, there aren't any books or letters about many of these names.
[57:10] But you're still there. You're still faithful. You're faithful. We thank you for that. Thank you, Lord, for the scene, the baptism of Jesus.
[57:23] That confirms who he is to us. He is the Lamb of God who's come to take away the sin of the world.
[57:38] He's come to take away my sin. All of our sin. Thank you, Lord, for the message that we need to hear to trust you as Savior.
[57:52] That you are our only hope. There is no plan B. There is no other way.
[58:03] It's only through Jesus Christ, our Savior. May we be reminded of that. May we be swift to speak it to those who need to hear it, to those who have not come to faith in Christ.
[58:19] To the many who have heard the message, but have stiff-armed that message, that invitation. Because they don't want to submit to you.
[58:35] I pray, Lord, that you would work in their hearts. To break their hearts. Do what is necessary to bring them to the point of saying, I surrender.
[58:47] I surrender. I surrender. My life is yours. I trust you with it. So, Lord, I pray that we would listen and do the things that you've commanded us to do.
[59:05] We would take them to heart. And, Lord, that we would be obedient with our lives. That we would represent you well in our homes, our families, and our communities, and in our church family.
[59:19] Lord, we love you and we thank you. And we ask it now in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.