The Return of Prophetic Voice: John the Baptist in Luke 3

And today we're picking back up in chapter 3 of the book of Luke, of the gospel of Luke.

And I guess that the theme to start out with this morning would be great and greater.

And in chapter 3, Luke returns us to the story of John the Baptist.

And with a historian's precision, right?

He places John's ministry here in the context of both five different Roman officials in verse 1.

We didn't read verse 1 together corporately today, but as you look back through

that, that's what happens in the high priesthood of Caiaphas in verse 2,

the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.

It's most likely around AD 29.

And at that time, the word of God came to John in the wilderness,

just as it did any number of prophets in the Old Testament, if we recall,

talks about in Jeremiah, Ezekiel.

And in its historical perspective, it's hard to imagine, church,

just what John's ministry here represented to the people of Israel.

For almost 500 years of prophetic silence, think about that for a minute,

the Lord was again speaking through the prophets.

And John here, John proclaimed a baptism of repentance, it says in verse three,

for the forgiveness of sins.

Repentance, church, involves a choice to turn the course of one's life.

It involves both turning away from a fundamental commitment,

I should say, to sin and a turning toward the Lord in obedience.

And Luke has already prepared us for the fact here that John's ministry would

be one of preparation, right? Calling sinners, in other words,

to turn from their ways, their evil ways in light of the Lord's coming, right?

And here in chapter 3, verses 4 through 6 that we read a moment ago,

he brings forward the words of Isaiah the prophet.

And it's actually quoted from Isaiah chapter 40, verses 3 and 5,

Isaiah 40:3

or 3 through 5. And he does this to further explain John's ministry here in

language that calls to mind the preparations that would be made for the arrival of a great ruler.

John is the servant church who has been dispatched here to make the road smooth,

to make it level, spiritually speaking, for the coming of who?

Right. The coming of Jesus, the coming of the Lord and his preaching,

which seems to have featured confrontational warnings and calls to,

you know, to specific acts of repentance here.

We see that in verses 7 through 14.

It was a proclamation, though, of good news.

Verse 18 tells us that because it was meant to enable people blinded by sin

to see what? to see God's salvation.

Y'all know the scriptures talk about before Christ that we are blind.

We're spiritually blind.

And so John's ministry here is opening up to prepare the way for the Lord.

And he's preaching here.

He's calling people to repentance, as I said. He's sharing the good news.

And he wants, through the power of the Spirit, to enable people to see God's

salvation, to be able to see what God has for them.

And John's preaching here, it found a receptive audience. We saw that, verses 10 and 11.

The tax collectors, the soldiers, remember those passages we read?

Two groups not known for their piety at all, right?

They were anxious to know, though, here, his instructions about how to live

out repentance in their lives, in verses 12 through 14 that we read.

And notice that, I want you all to get this, repentance is not going into a

different world like maybe a hermit would, right?

But it's living in the same world differently.

It's not going into a different world like a hermit, but living in the same world differently.

In other words, we're changed. We have a new heart, right?

And the crowds were expecting to even begin to wonder in the excitement that

surrounded John's ministry. And that indicated that he might,

in fact, actually, they thought he might be who?

Right? They thought he might be Christ. He might be the Messiah. It says that in verse 15.

But the baptizer would have none of that speculation, would he?

In fact, he describes Jesus in those passages that we read as more honorable than he.

So much so that John is not worthy to untie, unlatch his sandals, verse 16.

And here, church, I think we see John's humility here, and it's a powerful example

to us, to you and me, who would serve Jesus now, today.

Whether in a formal ministry capacity or not, to realize who we proclaim,

the gift of salvation that has come.

Y'all, the thing that makes me most passionate about sharing the gospel and

most passionate about sharing the good news of Christ is the fact that I know

my need of him, a need of a Savior.

I know that he cleansed my filthy, dirty heart, y'all. I know if he can do it

for me, he can do it for you.

And y'all, that's the attitude. I believe we all should have John's attitude here, every one of us.

And it's not easy to do all the time because we're human, right?

I mean, it's one thing to say, yes, Lord, I feel that attitude today,

but what about tomorrow when something else happens, right?

But we ought to always have that attitude of humility. And you know how we keep that?

It's by looking at the cross, by being at the foot of the cross,

by realizing the same grace that saved me can save anybody and realizing that I needed to be saved.

I wasn't good enough. I couldn't be good enough. Neither can you.

But though he was a great man and a mighty prophet here, John would not even

think of himself as worthy of being the lowest servant of Jesus,

but constantly he pointed people's attention away from himself to who?

To Christ. That was his calling, church. That was his purpose.

John tells the crowds that when the one who is more powerful comes,

he will not baptize with water, but with what?

The Holy Spirit, right? And fire.

In chapter three, verse 16 there. Verse 17 actually provides It's a vivid word

picture, I believe, of what the baptism will look like.

You know, Jesus is coming to bring the repentant, which is the wheat, into the barn.

But the unrepentant or the chaff, right, it looks like wheat,

but until it's thrown up in the air and the wind blows away,

that fake stuff, right, the chaff.

That will be burned up with unquenchable fire, it says here in this passage.

So in short, the one who is coming will bring a judgment that separates one

kind of person from another.

But there was, however, one notable exception here to the receptivity of crowds.

And Luke briefly, he moves us forward into the story to tell us that Herod, if you remember there,

the Tetrarch, also known as Antipas, by the way, was ruler of the region from

about 4 BC to AD 39, I believe, somewhere in that neighborhood.

And eventually took offense, though, to John's rebuke regarding his marriage

and his brother's wife and a host of other evil things he had done.

That's how it's described in this passage.

Basically, in a nutshell, we've talked about this before, those of you that

remember on the Q&A at Eastwood one Sunday night.

And we talked about basically John's thrown in prison here for actually correcting a political leader,

letting him know that what he was doing, the marriage here to his brother's

wife, and by the way, there's a whole bunch of convoluted things in there I

don't have time to go into right now, but all the things he had done was evil.

He dared to confront a political leader of his day about his definition of marriage.

Basically, in a nutshell, and that's why he ended up in prison.

And so Herod compounding his many offenses here, like I said,

by locking up this prophet in prison, adding one more wicked deed to the list

in verses 19 and 20, as we read.

But John's life reminds us that despite moments of popularity,

God's servants are normally rejected and despised by those in power.

I don't know about you, but that should just cause our ears to perk up.

Because as a normal thing, God's servants are normally rejected by those and

despised by those in power. Why do you think that is?

Because they teach God's word, right? They're just like John here.

They're proclaiming the way of the Lord.

They're calling people to repentance, right? And that's not popular.

That's not popular. Of course, that pattern will come to a climax in the life and ministry of Jesus.

And the fate of the forerunner here, John the Baptist, hints at the fate of

the greater one, as he talks about, that he has come to announce.

But I just got to throw back here. I got to say, kind of like Skillet would

say, Brother Aaron, I want to be unpopular, right, in today's culture.

And I tell you what, we need to take a stand on God's word.

We need to do it with humility, but we need to take a stand and we need to stand

for biblical truth and not be afraid like John the Baptist here to call out

sin where it's sin, but do so in love,

do so in humility, but we can't let it slide.

Well, then we've got to ask ourselves a question. What's the genealogy doing here in the book of Luke?

What do I mean by that? What's the genealogy doing here? Well,

Luke returns us to thoughts of Jesus' earthly family here for a moment.

And in the genealogy that concludes this chapter, we didn't quite get all through

this, but chapter verses 23 through 28, and you can read that as you sit here

or a little bit later, I'll go through some of it, but he traces Jesus's lineage back through.

Whose family? You remember? Joseph's family.

You got it. But not without reminding us that Joseph was only thought to be

Jesus' father, he says in verse 23.

So Luke's readers already know that Mary's son is in reality the son of the Most High.

Remember, we learned that in chapter 1, verse 32.

But readers here of the gospel have long wrestled with the many differences

between Jesus' Jesus's genealogy as it's recorded in the book of Luke and that

which opens up Matthew's gospel.

And the simplest explanation is that in those days, there were different methods

for describing somebody's lineage.

While Luke was perhaps, you know, sticking with a more strictly biological approach to Jesus'

ancestry here with Joseph, the one regarded there, or that one glaring exception,

I should say, to the biological descent being noted there in the genealogy.

But Matthew seems to be interesting in tracing the royal line of David down

into the present through its rightful heirs.

But we can go into a more detailed thing on that, but that's the difference

there as we look at that in the genealogies.

But like Matthew here, Luke highlights Jesus's important ancestors.

He indicates in his genealogy here that Jesus is the descendant of David, right?

In verse 31 of Luke chapter 3, and Abraham as well in verse 34.

Luke 3 · chapter mention

But unlike Matthew, I want you to get this today, unlike Matthew,

he traces the lineage all the way back to, anybody know?

All the way back to Adam, whom he significantly refers to in verse 38,

if you look at it, as the son of God.

Lowercase s-o-n. Luke seems to be flashing here his theological headlights, if you will, to all of us.

He's wanting to point out that there are actually two people who can truly be

spoken of as the Son of God.

Both Adam and Jesus have no human biological father.

They own their descent directly to who?

To God himself. And so we're meant to see here that there's something about

the life and ministry of Jesus, the Son of God, capital S-O-N,

that connects into the life and ministry of Adam,

the other Son of God, lowercase S-O-N.

So let's look at this a little bit deeper this morning. Two other Sons of God,

two other Sons of God on this next slide here.

And the theme of God's Son, it's an important thread, right,

woven throughout the storyline of the Bible.

And when Luke tells us that Adam was the son of God, he is surely referring

to the fact of Adam's special, his direct creation by God.

And like Jesus, Adam had no biological earthly father, like we noted earlier.

But the Genesis narrative also hints at a deeper reality behind Luke's statement

here that Adam was the son of God.

Because we're told in the creation account that Adam was created in Genesis

Genesis 1:26

1 verses 26 and 27 in whose image?

God's image. That means that he was made with the capacity church and the desire

to reflect the character and purposes of his creator.

And we understand immediately the way in which a child bears the image of his or her parents, right?

I mean, think about it. You look at the kids right here with Aaron and Becky, right?

You look at every one of y'all, your kids, look at the resemblance,

right, to you, their parents.

And while none of them look exactly like their siblings, they all bear some

resemblance to them, to their parents, right?

And if we were standing near each other, all these families,

you know, you wouldn't have trouble believing that those kids are related to

who they're related to, right?

So in addition to that physical resemblance and sometimes even mannerisms like

the way you walk or whatever, all of that, they reflect the priorities as well

and the passions of their parents.

You know, it just depends on what that particular thing is.

But whatever it is, you can just simply state that you could learn a lot of

things about me by observing my kids.

As scary or as happy as that may be, right?

So in a much more profound way, though, Adam, get this, church,

the Son of God and the image of God, created in the image of God,

was created to represent God to the world.

But sadly, y'all know this, shockingly, he was not content with the role that had been granted to him.

He rebelled against his father, and the image of God in mankind was,

if not lost altogether, at least significantly defaced here, right?

And at this point, God would have been justified if he would have just decided

to punish Adam and Eve and entirely abandon the project of creating a race of

image bearers for his glory. But guess what? He did not do that, did he?

The Old Testament drama moves along. We see that God has no such intention whatsoever.

Instead, he calls who? He calls the nation of Israel out of all the nations

on the earth to carry forward the mantle that Adam dropped.

And God actually identifies Israel as my son to Pharaoh. Do you remember that in Exodus 4?

And he delivers them from slavery in Egypt, and then he calls them to reflect

his image by being holy just as he is holy in Leviticus.

But ultimately, however, Israel, y'all know the story here, was no more faithful

to their charge than Adam was, right?

God's chosen holy people repeatedly failed to represent the Lord to the nations

of the world, and ultimately they were sent into exile.

And again, at this point, God would have been fully justified if he had simply

decided to visit judgment on humanity.

Once and for all, poof, you're gone, right?

But instead, he promised yet again, church, that he would not abandon his plan

to create a people who would reflect his character and his glory.

And during that long period of silence that we were talking about earlier between

the prophet Malachi and the arrival here of John the Baptist,

the people of Israel had only that promise to cling to.

But that brings us to a question of identity.

Baptism was and is an act with layers of deep symbolic significance.

And one of the things that it represents, church, is identification with or

inclusion in something.

And so Paul can speak of the Israelites here as being baptized into Moses,

as he does in 1 Corinthians 10, and Christians being baptized into one body,

as he does in 1 Corinthians 12,

and into Christ, as he says in Romans 6, Galatians 3.

To be baptized, he would, is to make a statement about your loyalty,

your allegiance, and your identity.

So when Jesus comes here to be baptized, what is he doing?

He is identifying himself with people who needed a baptism of repentance for

the forgiveness of sins.

Wow. With that context, though, church in place,

we can understand why Luke puts the record of Jesus's genealogy at the conclusion

of his narrative on Jesus' baptism, because we're going to see in the next chapter

that we study immediately before his account of Jesus's temptation in the wilderness.

If nothing else, verses 23 through 38 here represent an unbroken chain of sinful

human beings, that's you and me, who are in need of repentance.

And part of the glory of Jesus's incarnation church is that God would willingly,

don't miss this today, God would willingly stoop into human history,

sinful and broken as it is.

Jesus's baptism is a powerful picture of that truth, that the sinless son of

God would be willing to identify himself with the sinful sons of God. Wow.

That should just cause us to worship. That should be like hands up, right?

What good news then is delivered by the voice from heaven at Jesus' baptism? Look at it again.

Verse 22, you are my son whom I love with you. I am well pleased.

This is the son of God. Just like Adam and the nation of Israel, this son is loved by God.

Just like Adam, and unlike the

nation of Israel, though, this son is perfectly pleasing to his father.

Finally, y'all, we have a holy and obedient son of God.

Because you know what? You already know this, but Jesus is a second Adam.

The real surprise of the gospel, of course, is that the pleasing son did not

come into history just to enjoy the love and pleasure of his heavenly father, did he?

Instead, shockingly, we see at

his baptism that the sinless Jesus is identifying himself with who again?

With sinful humanity, that's you and me.

He went under the waters of baptism, he's would here, as a way of saying this,

a way of saying, consider me to be one of them.

And ultimately what? He became one of us, amen? so that he could take our place

and take our punishment on the cross.

That sacrificial kindness of God comes into sharper focus, I believe,

when we see the way here that the Father's love and pleasure at Jesus' baptism,

y'all get this today, is replaced by the cup of God's wrath at the cross.

Jesus willingly identified with sinful humanity so that sinful humans here could

be identified with his righteousness, it says in 2 Corinthians 5, 21.

You see, if your heart this morning, if my heart grasps the depth of this truth

today, it's gonna change much about your life.

Think about how much time you spend worrying about what others think of you.

Have you ever thought about that? Look at the way that you respond when you

become aware of your failures and shortcomings, either through your own discovery

or maybe through the criticism of others.

If you're defensive, if you're self-protective and prone to despair and self-loathing.

It's because you desperately want to be what?

You want to be perfect. You want to be right. You want to be justified.

You want to be looked upon and accepted as someone who is lovely and good.

And the gospel comes to us, church, with a much better salvation that can be

found in the fleeting approval of finite people.

It tells us what? Be reminded of this today, that in Jesus, we are,

church, the righteousness of God in Christ, and that God, whose opinion truly

matters in the end, by the way,

approves of us 100% despite our sin.

And that means that, as we see in this next slide, we don't get to boast in

our own goodness, do we? What did that ever do for us anyway, right?

But if you understand, church, get this, if you understand what it means to

have Christ's perfect righteousness imputed to you as a gift,

you'll find security and you'll find peace and an ever-diminishing concern for

the opinions of other people.

I'm telling you, you're going to be saying, hallelujah, thank you,

Jesus, for the forgiveness of my sin.

Thank you, Lord, for what you did for me. And the opinions of other people don't really matter.

In fact, when somebody points out a sin in your life, it's not that you might

not appreciate it if it's done in love, but you can just simply say,

hey, I so appreciate that.

Man, there's a whole lot more you don't know about. Just keep praying for me.

But you know what? I'm the righteousness of God in Christ. Hallelujah. God has got me.

His blood covers all my sins. You ought to rejoice in the fact that Jesus' blood has covered them all.

Don't seek out the approval of other people.

Seek out the approval of the one that matters. that's God himself.

Well, we're wrapping up. The story isn't over.

All that means, of course, that the story of God's sons, remember?

Who are they? Adam, Israel, and who?

Jesus. It's not over. God's purpose was to create for himself a people,

a group of sons and daughters.

Look out here, look around you, who would delight in his love and reflect his character in his image.

You see, church, Jesus did what both Adam and the nation of Israel failed to do.

And now all those who put their trust in him can be called sons and daughters of God.

I want you to know today, if you're here and you don't know,

you haven't experienced this forgiveness.

Today, you can, y'all. You can experience this.

When you put your faith and trust in Christ alone and you turn from your sins,

you can be called a son and daughter of God.

In fact, in a very real way, the church is called to pick up the mantle here

of joyfully bearing the image of God and reflecting his character to the world, all of us.

So why should Jesus' people love their enemies, for example?

Because what we see clearly in the cross of Jesus is that our heavenly father

here, he's a God who loves his enemies.

If we would be his children, guess what? We need to look like our daddy. Okay.

We should exhibit his perfections in our lives, as it talks about in Matthew

5. Why should followers of Jesus reject sin?

Because just as Israel was called to be holy because their God was holy, your daddy's holy.

So as obedient children, Christians are called to be holy in all that we do in 1 Peter.

And in that way, we are living out, church, the righteousness of Jesus that

is ours, again, as a gift.

We're not perfect, church, like Jesus. Though God chooses to look at us that

way, do you get the gift, church, that God sees you as the righteousness of God in Christ?

Because of the righteous life Jesus lived, he never sinned in thought, word, or deed.

That righteousness is imputed to your account, to my account.

And when God looks at you, he doesn't see the life you've lived.

He sees the life Jesus lived. if that

didn't get you excited i don't know what would i mean

that's what it's all about you see you can't get to

heaven on your good works you can't get to heaven because

i helped little ladies across the street or or gave so much money to the poor

yeah we should be doing those things but that doesn't earn us a place in heaven

there's no way you can earn it you're not good enough i'm not good enough billy

graham wasn't good enough franklin's not good enough none of those dr david

jeremiah mine's not good enough.

None of us are good enough. That's why we need Jesus.

That's why we need to be saved. That's why we need to be rescued.

That's why we needed a second Adam who would live that life on our behalf.

He would die the death that we should have died on the cross.

He would take all the wrath, that cup of God's wrath upon him,

and die in our place and rise again so that we could be made the righteousness of God in Christ.

You see, as we walk as children of God, we find that the Holy Spirit conforms

us all more and more to the image of his son.

And guess what? We get to have our names added to the genealogy of God's family. Hallelujah.