SPEAKER_00: Our reading today is from Luke chapter three, verse one to twenty two.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist prepares the way.
SPEAKER_00: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, Tetrarch of the region of Itteria and Traconius, and Lysanius Tetrarch of Abilene.
SPEAKER_00: During the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness, and he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight, every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
SPEAKER_00: He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
SPEAKER_00: Bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.
SPEAKER_00: For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.
SPEAKER_00: Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
SPEAKER_00: And the crowds asked him, What then shall we do?
SPEAKER_00: And he answered them, Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who is none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.
SPEAKER_00: Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, Teacher, what shall we do?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Collect no more than you are authorized to do.
SPEAKER_00: Soldiers also asked him, And we, what shall we do?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.
SPEAKER_00: As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming.
SPEAKER_00: The strap of those sandals I am not worthy to untie.
SPEAKER_00: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
SPEAKER_00: His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
SPEAKER_00: So when many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.
SPEAKER_00: But Herod the Tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother's wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all that he locked up John in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased.
SPEAKER_00: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: If you join us while we're singing, my name's Mark.
SPEAKER_02: I am uh the lead pastor, one of the elders here at uh City Church.
SPEAKER_02: We're in that uh Luke passage uh that Arena read for us.
SPEAKER_02: We're in Luke up until Easter, and we've just uh received a uh delivery of these little uh Luke journals.
SPEAKER_02: So this is the entire text of uh the book of Luke in the same translation that we use on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_02: And there's space for you to take notes either in your Bible studies that run with the uh sermon series or bring them along on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_02: You can pick those up at the Connect table uh for uh five euro.
SPEAKER_02: So if you've got a fiver in your pocket, or you can scan the QR code and you can donate a fiver, we trust you.
SPEAKER_02: Uh you can take one of these uh away with you.
SPEAKER_02: They're only 25 as a kind of initial order.
SPEAKER_02: See how we get on, and we can always order more.
SPEAKER_02: They're at the connect table that will uh partner with you in uh the sermon series over the next uh 11, 12 uh weeks uh or or so.
SPEAKER_02: The passage that Orina read with us begins with uh all of these uh descriptions of leaders, uh different uh different kings, different priests, and all of these people, uh the kind of normal civilian class, are coming out to this guy, John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_02: Now we met John the Baptist uh at least in utero a couple of weeks ago.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he is the son of Elizabeth and Zachariah, and is Jesus' uh cousin.
SPEAKER_02: And uh this passage details his ministry and how everybody's coming to him.
SPEAKER_02: They're hungry, they're searching, they're looking for something, they're wanting to be baptized by him.
SPEAKER_02: And the time that Luke lays out for us in describing all of these different political leaders and high priests and and things like that was a time of unrest.
SPEAKER_02: It was a time of political division and upheaval, and that's the kind of sense that I think that uh that Luke is trying to communicate.
SPEAKER_02: So, first of all, the land has been colonized, it is part of the Roman Empire, and so there's a a foreign power that is ruling over the land of Israel, and that the old kingdoms are both weak and divided.
SPEAKER_02: So uh you have this reference to a tetrarch.
SPEAKER_02: Uh a tetrarch is somebody who rules over a quarter of a kingdom.
SPEAKER_02: It's a tetrar, kind of meaning four uh in in Latin, a tetrahedron, right?
SPEAKER_02: It's a tetrarch is somebody who rules over a fourth.
SPEAKER_02: And so after Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided in four.
SPEAKER_02: And you have another Herod, and you've got Philip, and you've got another guy, and they're all ruling a little portion, but they're all kind of puppet, kind of provincial rulers under the emperor.
SPEAKER_02: And he's got his, uh he's got his lucky, he's got his middle management, Pontius Pilate, uh, and Corinius being governor of Syria, and and oh, there's all of this kind of political uh division and uncertainty.
SPEAKER_02: Not only that, but there was also religious division and uncertainty.
SPEAKER_02: So people mistakenly think that um two religious classes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_02: And we think Pharisees and Sadducees, they were they were the guys who got together to kill Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: So they must have really liked one another.
SPEAKER_02: Not at all.
SPEAKER_02: It's part of the amazing thing, uh, terribly amazing thing about the uh biographical accounts of Jesus is that they both hated Jesus so much that they were prepared to set aside their hostility and animosity towards one another.
SPEAKER_02: The Pharisees were uh the they were the religious conservatives.
SPEAKER_02: So if you want to, so actually I should be standing on my right, okay.
SPEAKER_02: I know it's your left, okay?
SPEAKER_02: So they were kind of on the right, if you want to think about it this way, but the Sadducees very much were not.
SPEAKER_02: The Sadducees were very influenced by by Greek philosophical thought.
SPEAKER_02: They were people of the left, they were quite progressive in their Judaism.
SPEAKER_02: They didn't really think too much about miracles, they didn't agree that God was going to raise the dead.
SPEAKER_02: And so you had all of this kind of uh fighting and debating and culture wars, right, in the time of Luke sound familiar.
SPEAKER_02: You even have these two high priests mentioned, a guy called Annas and his son Caiaphas.
SPEAKER_02: And the thing that's going on there is that the high priest in Jerusalem, Annas, had annoyed Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_02: And Pontius Pilate, who's a Roman and Gentile, had had him deposed.
SPEAKER_02: And so they had to put in another guy to kind of make peace with the ruling powers, but lots of people still followed Annas because he was the more conservative guy who was going to quote unquote stick it to the man, right?
SPEAKER_02: So there's all of this going on in the background of Luke's gospel when we read about people are searching.
SPEAKER_02: There's all of this uncertainty, there's all of this tribalism and division and uh and kind of culture warfare and people not quite knowing what's true and what's not.
SPEAKER_02: And so they're looking for something, and they come out into the wilderness and they find this guy, John, looking and sounding very strange.
SPEAKER_02: There is distrust of the institutions, just like there's distrust of the church, political unrest and uncertainty, people looking for something that's true and emotionally and psychologically satisfying.
SPEAKER_02: It's into that context that Luke says the word of God comes to a guy called John in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: And Luke says that his message is the fulfillment of something that was said 700 years previously through the prophet Isaiah.
SPEAKER_02: And he quotes it for us there in verse 4.
SPEAKER_02: The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
SPEAKER_02: Every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
SPEAKER_02: In the ancient world, if you and I were going on a journey, which is traveling from one town to the next, there wasn't really a road that you could call a road.
SPEAKER_02: What there was was uh a path that the person who had walked before you had worn, and the person before them had walked in the same way and had it had kind of worn in in the same way that you might kind of perceive a uh a walkway through a field.
SPEAKER_02: It's not really a uh a path per se, it's just where everyone else has walked and it's been worn in.
SPEAKER_02: There wasn't really roads, and so if you're wearing in this path just by hundreds of people walking the same way, if there was a boulder, you walked around it.
SPEAKER_02: If there was a valley, you had to walk down it.
SPEAKER_02: If there was a mountain, you had to walk over it.
SPEAKER_02: There wasn't really much choice, except if you were a king.
SPEAKER_02: If you were a king and you were going on a tour of your kingdom or of your empire, one of the things that you did in preparation for uh your arrival is you sent out your engineers and you sent out your messengers.
SPEAKER_02: And the engineers were the road builders, they were the ones who would go and prepare the way.
SPEAKER_02: They'd fill in the potholes so that your carriage didn't break a break a wheel.
SPEAKER_02: Uh they would level the ground, they would prepare the way, and and the messengers would go to the towns ahead of them and say, There's such an honor going to befall you.
SPEAKER_02: This time next year, the king is going to arrive.
SPEAKER_02: You've got to prepare yourself, get the town ready, because the king is coming.
SPEAKER_02: And Isaiah is saying that that is what John is doing.
SPEAKER_02: He is a herald telling people to make the paths straight, not just for the arrival of any old king, certainly not for the arrival of a Tetrarch, but for the arrival of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Yahweh, the Old Testament covenant name for God.
SPEAKER_02: Yahweh himself, God Himself, is coming, and you've got to make yourself ready.
SPEAKER_02: You've got to prepare the paths.
SPEAKER_02: The question then is, well, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: How do you do that?
SPEAKER_02: John wasn't asking people to pick up a shovel and get to work, filling in valleys and tearing down mountains.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, the the pathways that John is calling us to get straight are the pathways through our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: It's through the way that we think and feel and act towards God and towards others.
SPEAKER_02: He said that's the those are some of the crooked ways that need to be made straight.
SPEAKER_02: The mountains of self-reliance and false hope and pride, they're the ones that need to be torn down.
SPEAKER_02: The valleys of self-loathing or hopelessness, they're the ones that need to be filled up in order to prepare a way for the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And in this passage, John is essentially showing us, I think, four different ways in which it means to prepare the way for the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: The first is that we no longer rely simply on ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: We rely on him.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pick it up again in verse seven.
SPEAKER_02: He, that's uh John the the Baptist, said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, you brood of vipers, who warned you to free flee from the wrath to come, bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.
SPEAKER_02: For I tell you, God is able to take from these stones to raise up children for Abraham, and even now the axe is laid at the root of the trees.
SPEAKER_02: Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
SPEAKER_02: Do you think John got invited to many parties?
SPEAKER_02: John's a quirky guy.
SPEAKER_02: And what's his message?
SPEAKER_02: You need to repent.
SPEAKER_02: You brood of vipers.
SPEAKER_02: My goodness.
SPEAKER_02: What is the core?
SPEAKER_02: The core of the message that John is giving here comes, I think, in verse 9.
SPEAKER_02: In the subsequent verses, in verses 10 and following, he's asked by the people uh what they should do differently.
SPEAKER_02: And he explains different behaviors.
SPEAKER_02: So you should love generosity, uh, you should have integrity, you should uh be compassionate.
SPEAKER_02: But is that repentance?
SPEAKER_02: No, it's not.
SPEAKER_02: John's saying that's the fruit of the repentance, that's the sign that you have repented, but repentance is something else.
SPEAKER_02: If you've repented, you will do those things as a demonstration of a change.
SPEAKER_02: But repentance itself is not simply a change of behavior, but a change of the heart.
SPEAKER_02: And so the core, I think, is that where he says in verse 9, even now the axe is laid where?
SPEAKER_02: At the root.
SPEAKER_02: What needs to change about your life?
SPEAKER_02: What needs to change about my life?
SPEAKER_02: It's actually not just the things that you do or the things that you have done of which you are ashamed.
SPEAKER_02: Now, John is saying that actually what needs to change is at the root.
SPEAKER_02: That's where the axe needs to be laid, not just kind of lopping off some bad fruit, some fruit that's kind of gone slightly rotten, but it's a root change.
SPEAKER_02: That's what repentance is.
SPEAKER_02: You want to change, you want to make a straight path for the Lord in your life, then what you need is not just a change of behavior, but a change of heart.
SPEAKER_02: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it means no longer relying on yourself, but on another.
SPEAKER_02: And I think this is why John calls them a brood of vipers.
SPEAKER_02: I think he's hearkening back to the garden.
SPEAKER_02: I think he's hearkening back to Genesis 3, where if you remember your Bible at all, you know that there is a snake there.
SPEAKER_02: And God says that uh that the offspring of the snake, the brood of the viper, are going to be opposed to the offspring of the woman who will come to finally crush the snake.
SPEAKER_02: What does it mean to be of the offspring of the snake?
SPEAKER_02: What does it mean to be part of the brood of vipers?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's to believe the same lie that the snake told.
SPEAKER_02: That God cannot be trusted, and that he is not good, and that you'd be better off just ruling yourself.
SPEAKER_02: You'd be better off just going your your own way.
SPEAKER_02: That God actually does not have your best interest at heart, and that you should rely on yourself for your own well-being.
SPEAKER_02: That's the lie of the snake.
SPEAKER_02: And we see that lie coming up, being brought out by John, because the thing that the people coming out to be baptized by him are relying upon is upon their own uh ethnic heritage, their religious pedigree.
SPEAKER_02: The fact that they have been descended from a great man, Abraham.
SPEAKER_02: They're believing the lie of self-reliance.
SPEAKER_02: They're believing the lie of the snake.
SPEAKER_02: And so John takes aim at their ethnic and religious pride.
SPEAKER_02: He takes aim at their spiritual superiority.
SPEAKER_02: He says that it means nothing without a changed heart that is evidenced by changed action.
SPEAKER_02: If we're going to receive Jesus, if we're going to make straight paths for the Lord in our lives, it begins here.
SPEAKER_02: It begins with repentance, which is not just stopping doing some bad things and starting to do some good things.
SPEAKER_02: It is a whole change of life direction.
SPEAKER_02: It is a determination to actually, I'm gonna not rely on myself anymore.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna place my trust, my reliance, my dependence on another.
SPEAKER_02: That is what John calls us to.
SPEAKER_02: It's what he called the people who were coming out to be baptized by him to.
SPEAKER_02: Repentance is not just trimming off the branches and taking off some rotten fruit, it's the turning of the heart to rely upon him rather than ourselves to affirm that Jesus is the king and to rely upon him as the one who rescues us.
SPEAKER_02: Since, therefore, he is the Lord that John is preparing the way for, John calls us to place our trust in him, to find him as the source of our hope, the source of our life, the source of our value.
SPEAKER_02: And if we do that, John says it will be evidenced, it will be shown in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: You'll look different, you'll speak different, you'll feel differently, you'll act differently.
SPEAKER_02: It will be evidenced by the fruits of repentance.
SPEAKER_02: And so the second way that we prepare for the Lord in our lives is by obeying him.
SPEAKER_02: We rely upon him and we obey him.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, obedience.
SPEAKER_02: All the way through the Old Testament, God is continually sending uh rescuers to his people.
SPEAKER_02: Think of Moses being raised up by God, the baby in the basket who uh grows up in the Egyptian household, eventually meets God and is called by the Lord in the burning bush to lead his people out of slavery.
SPEAKER_02: He becomes the the rescuer for his people, or Joshua, the one who would lead God's people into the land of promise.
SPEAKER_02: And he does so, and things go well for a while, and yet they fall away into sin and faithlessness.
SPEAKER_02: And we enter into the period of the judges, where God raises up folks like Deborah and Barak and Samson to rescue the people again, and they come back and they repent, and things go well for a while, and then they slip back into sin and folly and faithlessness.
SPEAKER_02: And so God sends the kings, and the kings come.
SPEAKER_02: And the high point is David and Solomon.
SPEAKER_02: They defeat the Lord's enemies, they uh bring people back to God, and yet after Solomon, the kingdom divides and they they slip back in.
SPEAKER_02: There's this constant ebb and flow of crying out for rescue, God sending a rescuer, slipping back.
SPEAKER_02: Into sin over and over and over again until you get to what Isaiah says here.
SPEAKER_02: What Isaiah is saying here is like the Lord is no longer going to send another rescuer, he's no longer going to just raise up another human being who's going to kind of keep on repeating the cycle.
SPEAKER_02: No, what Isaiah is saying is that the Lord Himself is going to come.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because the people actually need not just rescuing from the consequences of their sinful behavior, but they need rescuing at the level of their hearts.
SPEAKER_02: Luke, in quoting Isaiah, is saying that God is going to come close to rescue his people.
SPEAKER_02: Bear that in mind as you think about Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Nazareth.
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to say in my Nordic accent.
SPEAKER_02: Nazareth.
SPEAKER_02: Stepping on to the stage of human history.
SPEAKER_02: He is the one that Isaiah is speaking about.
SPEAKER_02: John says that I'm preparing the way for him.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is the Lord, sent to rescue us, come to rescue us.
SPEAKER_02: He is Yahweh come close to deliver his people.
SPEAKER_02: What does that mean for us?
SPEAKER_02: It means this.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't accommodate himself to our crooked roads.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't reconfigure the topology of his life.
SPEAKER_02: He reconfigures the topology of our life.
SPEAKER_02: He transforms us.
SPEAKER_02: To follow him is a comprehensive realignment of our values, of our hopes, of our aspirations, of our desires, of our loves.
SPEAKER_02: If you sit here and say to yourself, I'll obey if, then one of the things that you demonstrate is actually you're not obeying at all.
SPEAKER_02: And that is what John is talking about in the examples of the faithful obedience, when he gives these examples of honesty and integrity and contentment and valuing others and love and care and concern for justice and for righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting, look at who was coming to John.
SPEAKER_02: We read in verse 12 and verse 14 that it's tax collectors and soldiers.
SPEAKER_02: These are people who were scorned.
SPEAKER_02: They were looked down on for actually really not being very religious at all and being quite corrupt.
SPEAKER_02: And they're the ones that are coming.
SPEAKER_02: They recognize actually there are crooked ways in my heart that need to be made straight for the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And isn't it interesting that John doesn't say to them, you've got to leave your job.
SPEAKER_02: Your job's just crooked through and through.
SPEAKER_02: Stay in your job and do it righteously.
SPEAKER_02: Do it with integrity and honesty and contentment and hope outside of what your career will give you.
SPEAKER_02: To do what you've been called to do in a new and redeemed way.
SPEAKER_02: When all is said and done, what is this obedience?
SPEAKER_02: Obedience is this: it is a visible allegiance to the God who has come to rescue you.
SPEAKER_02: It is visibly showing in your actions that you belong to another, that your heart is relying, depending, trusting in another.
SPEAKER_02: And when we truly understand that salvation, it gives us joy.
SPEAKER_02: It gives us such a joy that we we cannot help but want to obey, want to follow him when we understand why he has done, what he has done.
SPEAKER_02: And that's our third point.
SPEAKER_02: That John talks about the salvation that this Lord will bring.
SPEAKER_02: And I think when we really grasp it, one of the things that it will stir in our hearts is a new sense of joy.
SPEAKER_02: So thirdly, rejoice in his salvation.
SPEAKER_02: All of my Baptist brothers and sisters here this morning will be delighted to know that there are two Baptists in this passage.
SPEAKER_02: One is John and one is Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And all of my Baptist brothers and sisters will say, well, yes, obviously, uh they're both Baptists.
SPEAKER_02: They both have a baptism.
SPEAKER_02: But what do they mean?
SPEAKER_02: John's talking about he's he's baptizing people, but he's also saying Jesus is going to baptize you as well.
SPEAKER_02: Baptism.
SPEAKER_02: Traditionally, in ancient Judaism, was a washing right that was administered to Gentiles, to non-Jews.
SPEAKER_02: It's not something that Jews did, right?
SPEAKER_02: It was for those who were outside of the covenant people of Israel, because Gentiles were considered as being morally unclean.
SPEAKER_02: They're the ones that needed a wash.
SPEAKER_02: They stank spiritually speaking, they worshipped other gods.
SPEAKER_02: They were perverted in their private lives, they were perverted in their public morality, they were dirty, morally and spiritually speaking.
SPEAKER_02: But here comes John.
SPEAKER_02: And who is he talking to?
SPEAKER_02: Israelites.
SPEAKER_02: People who relied on Abraham's our father.
SPEAKER_02: Jews who were already part of that family.
SPEAKER_02: And what does John say to them?
SPEAKER_02: Get in the water.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Well, there's three reasons why.
SPEAKER_02: Let me give you the first one.
SPEAKER_02: Everyone, John is saying, needs to be made clean.
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter about your religious pedigree, how faithful your parents were, your granny took you to church, none of it matters.
SPEAKER_02: All of us need to be made clean morally and spiritually speaking.
SPEAKER_02: All of us stink morally and spiritually.
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter if you are a super religious person or who have never described yourself that way.
SPEAKER_02: John saying, everyone in the water.
SPEAKER_02: That's the first thing that it means.
SPEAKER_02: Not only this, but Luke tells us that the people were being baptized by John.
SPEAKER_02: And that's weird.
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you why that's weird.
SPEAKER_02: Because baptism in the ancient Jewish rite was something that was self-administered.
SPEAKER_02: You did it yourself.
SPEAKER_02: There was a uh a body of water uh called a mikveh, right?
SPEAKER_02: And you went down in it yourself and you dunked yourself, okay?
SPEAKER_02: It was a self-administered thing.
SPEAKER_02: These guys are being baptized by John.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: John is showing you that you need to be made clean by another.
SPEAKER_02: You cannot be made clean by yourself.
SPEAKER_02: You need somebody else to come along and to cleanse you morally, spiritually.
SPEAKER_02: That's the second thing that John's baptism means.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the third thing that John's baptism means.
SPEAKER_02: Ready?
SPEAKER_02: Nothing.
SPEAKER_02: It means nothing.
SPEAKER_02: Don't take my word for it, take John's word for it.
SPEAKER_02: He says, look, none of this matters if you don't get the guy that I'm pointing to.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not even worthy to untie the sandals of the guy who's gonna come.
SPEAKER_02: That was the lowest of the low slave job.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, you should say, you shouldn't even get a slave in your house to untie the sandals because it's too degrading.
SPEAKER_02: And John's saying, I couldn't even do that.
SPEAKER_02: So it's all only a picture of the other who is coming, who will baptize you this time, not with water, but with what?
SPEAKER_02: With the Holy Spirit and with fire.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, calm down, John.
SPEAKER_02: The baptism that Jesus brings is a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I think that what John is saying is that Jesus is bringing a baptism, but it's not really in the way that John expects.
SPEAKER_02: John is expecting the Lord to step onto the stage and immediately for judgment to come.
SPEAKER_02: That division of humanity to take place there and then.
SPEAKER_02: That's why he says his withouting fork is in his hand.
SPEAKER_02: Widowing fork is a uh is a thing that you uh pick up kind of uh like um wheat with, okay, wheat stalks, and you would toss it up in the air, and the actual grains of wheat would fall back down to the to the ground, but the chaff, the little husk over the wheat, because it was lighter, it would blow away, you'd sweep it all up in the barn and you'd burn it, right?
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus is, or John is saying, Jesus is gonna come and he's gonna toss up all of humanity, and those who are who have been made clean, who are righteous, right, they'll fall to the ground.
SPEAKER_02: But everybody else who's still morally and spiritually uh corrupt, they're gonna get swept away and burnt.
SPEAKER_02: That's what he expects is going to happen.
SPEAKER_02: He said, judgment is coming, Holy Spirit and fire.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Then Jesus comes, and Jesus says to John, hi, cuz, uh, I'm sure he doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_02: Uh says, Hi, I need to be baptized by ye.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: In fact, John is perplexed as to why he would need to be baptized by John.
SPEAKER_02: Because Jesus doesn't need to be made morally clean, he's perfect.
SPEAKER_02: So what's going on?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, in being baptized by John, is identifying himself with all of us in our frailty, in our brokenness, in our sin.
SPEAKER_02: This is the good news of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: This is the Lord coming close to rescue.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is saying, I will face the fire of judgment for you.
SPEAKER_02: And we know that to be true because of something else that Jesus says in Luke's gospel about nine chapters later.
SPEAKER_02: In Luke 12, verse 50, he says, I have a baptism that I'm still to be baptized with.
SPEAKER_02: What's Jesus talking about?
SPEAKER_02: And he actually says this too to James and John when they want the places of honor.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Can you be baptized with the baptism with which I am to be baptized?
SPEAKER_02: Hasn't he been baptized?
SPEAKER_02: What's he talking about?
SPEAKER_02: He's talking, friends, brothers, sisters, about the cross.
SPEAKER_02: He's talking about his death.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying that I am going to be plunged under the waters of judgment for you.
SPEAKER_02: The fire is going to engulf me so that it will not destroy you.
SPEAKER_02: And as a result, all who would rely upon him is place our trust in him.
SPEAKER_02: We're baptized.
SPEAKER_02: We're not baptized with the judgment of God, but with the flame of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Isn't it interesting that Luke writes the book of Acts?
SPEAKER_02: And when the Holy Spirit comes, how does he show himself?
SPEAKER_02: Tongues of fire.
SPEAKER_02: Little flickering flames of fire, rather than being engulfed with the fire of judgment.
SPEAKER_02: It's beautiful, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is saying, I will be submerged under the judgment of God for your sin.
SPEAKER_02: I'm identifying with you in your brokenness in being baptized by John.
SPEAKER_02: And I'll take it.
SPEAKER_02: I will be obliterated so that you don't have to.
SPEAKER_02: So that you might know the renewal of the Holy Spirit at the level of your heart, that you might have joy to know that the Lord has come near to you, not in judgment and condemnation, but in mercy and grace to save us from our sins.
SPEAKER_02: The winnowing fork is coming.
SPEAKER_02: John was right in a sense.
SPEAKER_02: He just didn't realize that actually the Messiah was coming to deliver people from their sins before the final judgment.
SPEAKER_02: But for all of those, all of you here this morning, who rely and trust upon the Lord Jesus, we rejoice that he has made you clean.
SPEAKER_02: We rejoice that he has taken our place and be baptized with that fire of judgment, so that we might know the life of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: And with that joy, we delight in him, just as the Father did, and this is our final point.
SPEAKER_02: That John demonstrates delight in the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Luke concludes this section with one of the most significant moments in all of Jesus' ministry.
SPEAKER_02: And in our understanding, the Christian understanding of who God is.
SPEAKER_02: That at Jesus' baptism, all three members of the Godhead show up.
SPEAKER_02: They're on stage at the same time.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 21.
SPEAKER_02: Now, when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven saying, You are my beloved son.
SPEAKER_02: With you I am well pleased.
SPEAKER_02: What is each person of the Trinity doing in these verses?
SPEAKER_02: They are delighting in and exalting the Son.
SPEAKER_02: The Father speaks, you are my Son.
SPEAKER_02: With you I'm well pleased.
SPEAKER_02: I delight in you.
SPEAKER_02: And do you know what's I mean, that's wonderful on the face of it.
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you another reason why that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: The Father is speaking from heaven saying, I delight in you.
SPEAKER_02: You give me pleasure and joy.
SPEAKER_02: Right at the start of Jesus' ministry.
SPEAKER_02: In other words, Jesus hasn't done anything.
SPEAKER_02: He hasn't done anything.
SPEAKER_02: That the delight that the Father has is simply because the Son is his son.
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't that challenge us?
SPEAKER_02: I think I've said it, I think I've said it before.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that uh that kind of hits my heart is my my middle son.
SPEAKER_02: When I say, hey, buddy, I'm proud of you, you go, why?
SPEAKER_02: Because he expects me to kind of relay an achievement that he's done.
SPEAKER_02: I want him to grow up feeling that his dad is proud of him simply because he's my son.
SPEAKER_02: Because I delight in him.
SPEAKER_02: Not just, well, why?
SPEAKER_02: Give me the give me the credit for the things that I've done.
SPEAKER_02: I want to do that as well, right?
SPEAKER_02: But I want the delight to be at the level of just being.
SPEAKER_02: The fact that I'm his dad and he's my son.
SPEAKER_02: The spirit comes upon Jesus as a dove.
SPEAKER_02: Why it why a dove?
SPEAKER_02: Well, first of all, it's a visible sign to everyone around him that Jesus is the one who has been anointed by God.
SPEAKER_02: It's a confirmation, visible confirmation of what the voice is saying, that he is God's son.
SPEAKER_02: But the dove is also a symbol of peace.
SPEAKER_02: That's how it's come down to us even now.
SPEAKER_02: A symbol of peace that comes from the flood narrative back in Genesis 6 to 9, when other waters engulfed the earth and God made all things new.
SPEAKER_02: And the dove brings the sign that the waters of judgment were receding and creation was being made new.
SPEAKER_02: The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus as a dove to show that he is the one who will make all things new, that he is the one who will renew and redeem all of creation and all of us who would trust in him.
SPEAKER_02: He is the one who will bring peace between God and us.
SPEAKER_02: We often, and with this I'll finish, we often say at City Church, hey, look, if you're not a Christian, we're really glad that you're here.
SPEAKER_02: Like continue, continue exploring, continue asking your questions.
SPEAKER_02: And and of course that's true, but I feel compelled by this passage to change it slightly and say, if you're not a Christian here, become one.
SPEAKER_02: Become one today.
SPEAKER_02: Rely on Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Receive Him as Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Obey what He says.
SPEAKER_02: He is God, and we are not.
SPEAKER_02: He comes to make straight paths through our lives to transform us from the inside out, and that gives us joy.
SPEAKER_02: He took the judgment for us.
SPEAKER_02: He makes us clean.
SPEAKER_02: He forgives our sins.
SPEAKER_02: He takes our shame.
SPEAKER_02: And do you know what will happen?
SPEAKER_02: The same Father who delighted in his son, irrespective of the things that he would go on to do, will delight over you.
SPEAKER_02: Will delight over you forever.
SPEAKER_02: And the same Spirit who anointed Jesus will come and dwell in you forever.
SPEAKER_02: Renewing your life.
SPEAKER_02: Come to him.
SPEAKER_02: Receive Him as Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And know the joy that that brings.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Why don't we just take a moment in the silence for our own for our own prayers?
SPEAKER_02: Coming to God, rejoicing in the salvation that there is in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps coming to Jesus for the first time and asking for Him to transform you.
SPEAKER_02: Keep silent and then I'll pray for us.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you that that he was baptized through the fires of judgment so that we might walk free.
SPEAKER_02: Renew by your Holy Spirit a joy and delight of knowing that we have been cleansed by another, that we have been made new, and that Jesus is making all things new, and that one day every mountain of injustice and corruption and perversion will be made level.
SPEAKER_02: Every valley of despair and hopelessness will be raised up.
SPEAKER_02: And all will walk on straight paths to behold your face.
SPEAKER_02: Be with us.
SPEAKER_02: Now as we come to your table with empty hands, not relying on our spiritual pedigree, not relying on our moral goodness, not relying on anything in ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: Our hands are empty.
SPEAKER_02: And yet you fill them.
SPEAKER_02: You fill them with grace, you fill them with reassurance, you fill them with compassion.
SPEAKER_02: So use this time now as we meet around the Lord's table to encourage our hearts to find our faith to strengthen.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to this week's sermon.
SPEAKER_01: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.