Not Famous, Just Faithful • Luke 3:18-38
1:01:10 Teaching begins
Notes
As we go through Luke the verses will not always line up into neat portions that make up a whole teaching. Sometimes they will be somewhat unrelated. We have a situation like that today. We’re still going to learn about Jesus.
John is faithful to preach to every person, one of them takes offense, and stops his work.
Jesus is baptised and filled with the Holy Spirit as He prays.
Luke then traces Jesus’ genealogy back to the first man, Adam. There are a number of things we can learn from a genealogy.
Let’s read in Luke 3 from verse 18.
1. John is faithful to his calling to preach, and is shut down, vv. 18-20.
A. John preaches with power to prepare people for the coming of the Lord and people listen and respond by repenting. They take John’s words to heart and change their minds and change their lives.
B. John even reproves Herod Antipas publicly: You should not have your brother’s wife.
1. While Antipas was staying with his brother Philip he was attracted to Philip’s wife Herodias, who was Antipas’ niece. To marry her Antipas divorced his wife, who was the daughter of Aretas IV, king of the Nabateans. There were other wicked things Antipas did which are not mentioned here.
2. John is warning Antipas just like everyone else. Even tetrarchs and kings have to face up to the bigger danger: The Lord is coming to reward the righteous and burn the wicked. Repent and show your repentance with your actions.
C. You might think there are people who you shouldn’t share with.
1. They’re too big, they’re my boss, they’re the government. They’re too wicked. We think, “They wouldn’t make a good Christian.”
2. Everyone is a sinner, everyone needs Jesus. The gospel is for everyone. That’s why we share Jesus with the NHS when we have a chance. They’re doctors and nurses, very educated, but they’re just as lost as anyone you meet on the street. I also got to share with street repairers a couple of days ago. I didn’t have much time but I did share John 3:16 with them and they all got quiet for a few seconds.
D. Antipas is used to doing what he wants. Casting God’s words behind his back is nothing new for him. So he locks John up, just like that. John is stopped from speaking.
E. We might imagine, since this is God’s work He wouldn’t allow opposition. He would keep John alive and out of prison, He would supernaturally take care of the opposition. He does that in some cases. But here He doesn’t do that. Jesus said anyone who follows Me will suffer persecution. We see here that He is right. Jesus did not promise His followers a magic life without suffering.
F. Here’s some things to take away from this.
1. God doesn’t require you to be successful, He requires you to be faithful. Evangelism is not about winning a debate or selling a product, it’s telling them the good news regardless of how they receive that news. You can’t open hearts, only God can do that. Don’t take it personally when people shut you down for telling them about Jesus. Keep being faithful and give out John 3:16.
2. You don’t have to be scared to talk to people about Jesus when you have an opportunity. Ask Jesus to give you courage and love for that person. Perfect love casts out all fear because you’re thinking of that lost person, not yourself. That doctor or street repairer or whoever is lost. They look tough but they are lost. You can love them and have compassion on them.
3. People get to oppose God and reject Jesus for now. It doesn’t affect the judgment of God. It’s not even postponed. Nothing can prevent the judgment of God. That’s why everyone needs Jesus.
4. This is also about your own heart: beware of imitating Antipas and turning away from conviction. You always need to be convicted of your sins. If you stop listening to conviction you stop repenting and you won’t make judgment go away. You have to accept that conviction is always humbling. You either get humbled now or endure everlasting shame and contempt in hell. Today if you hear His voice do not harden your heart.
2. Jesus is baptised while He is praying, vv. 21-22.
A. Obviously, John baptised Jesus before Antipas arrested him. Luke is now focusing on Jesus.
B. The synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all record this event and emphasise different aspects.
1. Matthew brings out that John felt unworthy and said, “I need to be baptised by You!” Jesus said, permit this, we need to fulfil all righteousness.
2. Mark shows that Jesus left His hometown of Nazareth to be baptised by John. This was the first official act of His ministry. His baptism was not for repentance; He was sinless and didn’t need to repent. Jesus was baptised to identify with sinners, to represent them before God, to fulfil all their righteousness and to fulfil all their punishment for disobedience.
3. Only Luke notes that Jesus prayed at His baptism.
C. If you think about what prayer is you will know why Jesus prayed.
1. Part of prayer is worship, which means you offer yourself to God for service. God is worthy of all you have and all you are to be placed at His disposal. Remember this is His first official act as Messiah. Jesus is offering Himself as the Servant of God, His bondslave, who will accomplish all His good will.
2. Part of prayer is thanksgiving. You acknowledge all God’s goodness towards you, all He has given you, even the bad things that God will work out for good—it’s all good. Jesus is thanking God, even that He is the Messiah and that He can offer Himself completely to God.
3. Part of prayer is adoration. Jesus loves the Father emotionally, with all His heart, soul, mind, strength. Jesus doesn’t serve the Father’s will and find a way to also do His will, kind of average them together. He’s altogether devoted to God’s good, perfect, acceptable will.
4. Part of prayer is supplication, to make a humble request in an urgent, earnest way. You’d think that, Jesus is God! He has to be the one independent guy of all history. Capable! However, Jesus is the only perfect man, and being perfect He is completely dependent upon God. He is humble with the humility of God, and glories in depending fully on His Father for everything.
5. He is not confessing His sins because He has no disobedience, no conflict with the Father, nothing in Him opposed to the Father, light, and no darkness at all.
D. He looks at us with our dependence on ourselves, our dislike of feeling helpless, our distrust of God, our unwillingness to seek His will, our ingratitude for all God’s benefits, our emotional detachment and apathy towards God, our great love for ourselves and sin, and Jesus says to the Father, “These guys are so lost. They’re hurting and scattered like sheep without a shepherd. Father, do all Your good will. Use Me to the fullest, save them, turn them from darkness to light. Give Me the men who will receive Your words, enable them as You enable Me.”
E. That’s when the Father gives His Holy Spirit to rest upon Jesus, and says, “This is My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.”
1. God gives His Holy Spirit to those who obey Him. He responds to Jesus’ submission and obedience by opening the heavens and sending the Holy Spirit to remain upon Him. Through the Holy Spirit Jesus will do God’s will perfectly, to save us.
2. The dove is a symbol of peace ever since the flood of Noah. Here Jesus has come to establish God’s will, to make peace between man and God.
3. Then Luke shows us Jesus’ genealogy, an unbroken line that goes back to Adam, vv. 23-38.
A. First we notice that this genealogy is different from Matthew 1.
1. There it’s Joseph’s genealogy. Joseph is descended from David and in effect inherits the promise God made to David, that one of his descendants would rule on David’s throne forever. Some people make the point that inheritance is through the father. That promise could pass on to Jesus as Joseph’s adopted son.
2. Notice here that it was assumed or supposed that Joseph was the father of Jesus. Luke is saying we know Joseph was not Jesus’ father. This is Mary’s genealogy through her father. She also is a descendant of David.
3. This fulfils God’s promise in 2 Samuel 7 that from David’s body would come the Messiah. This is the same language God used when He promised Abraham that he would have a son from his own body. God waited until Abraham was as good as dead before He fulfilled His promise because He always intended it to be a miraculous birth, life out of the dead. It’s the same situation here. God ordained that the Messiah should be born miraculously of a virgin and still be physically descended from David.
4. God is therefore fulfilling His promise literally through Mary.
B. The other thing we want to notice is that Luke’s list goes right back to Adam, the first man. Matthew’s genealogy could be extended in the same way but he didn’t do that. Luke emphasises the continuity from Adam to Jesus.
C. Luke presents to us Jesus as a new beginning, where the history of man is ended and a new humanity begins.
1. The first man Adam was created by God to be perfect. Adam disobeyed God, he sinned against God, and broke relationship with God. Adam died spiritually even as he still lived physically. And he and every person since Adam die because of Adam’s sin. The rest of history shows that all men are born sinners, rebellious against God, already dead in sins and transgressions. Even this genealogy is a list of men who knew God to a greater or lesser degree and yet they sinned against Him.
2. Jesus ends the history of sinful man. He was crucified for all the sin of the world, from Adam, even to this day. Jesus died to end the line of Adam. Everyone who receives Christ receives His death to the old life. Your history of sin and death ends with Christ.
3. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. You might say, it’s not fair that Adam sinned and I was made a sinner. It works the same way in salvation. Jesus died to sin and rose from the dead with new life and in Him you receive death to sin and new life. You’re either in Adam and you’re dead in sin, or you’re in Jesus and you’re alive forever with Him.
4. Right here at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry He is identifying with sinful man in order to make a new beginning.
4. So what?
A. You don’t need to be famous, just faithful. Half the genealogy of Jesus is famous people, then it suddenly becomes a list of unknown people. God gives it to some to be famous, others to be unknown. All that matters is what God thinks of you. Your job is to serve God faithfully in your generation. That might be ruling a nation or raising a family in the love and discipline of the Lord. Forty generations of unknown fathers served God by raising their families, and they didn’t know they were in the lineage of the Messiah. They were faithful to God.
B. To be faithful, you receive Jesus first. Be His new creation, be transformed from glory to glory. And you pray. You yield yourself completely in helplessness to Him as His bond-slave. Prayer is helplessness. God is well-pleased when you rely fully on Him. This is your rational and spiritual service of worship.
Let’s pray.