TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to Luke’s gospel. Chapter 3 today on Through the Word, with the ministry of the first Bible hero of the New Testament: John the Baptist. John had one essential ministry: preparation. Have you ever tried to share the love of God with someone, and you just knew that something was in the way? As if they had an invisible wall up. Or maybe that’s you. Do you ever feel like the message goes in the ears but something stops it before the heart? You just might need a John the Baptist message.
Luke begins by quoting an ancient prophecy about John. Verse 4:
“As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: ‘A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
“Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for Him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation”’” (Luke 3:4-6).
So there it is, John’s calling—from centuries before—was to prepare the way for the Lord. Now John wasn’t out plowing trails for Jesus to walk on, and he didn’t go flattening mountains and filling valleys to make straight paths. The path he cleared was the road to the hearts of the people, and that path doesn’t clear easily. All kinds of junk can crowd the way.
What does it take to open a stubborn heart? Well, John the Baptist focused his ministry on one thing: repentance. Back in verse 3:
“He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3).
Now baptism was somewhat new to the Jews. The only people that had been baptized before were those that wanted to become Jews. And this baptism is a little different from the one that you and I go through as Christians. They didn’t have faith in Jesus yet. This was simply a baptism of repentance. To repent is to turn away from sin, deciding that it is wrong. In Latin the word means something like “changing your mind.” In other words, changing the way you think about the things that you do and the way you live, agreeing with God when He calls it wrong, and deciding that it’s time to turn and live for Him. And repentance is the main ingredient necessary to prepare a heart for Jesus.
Now John’s message is not the full gospel. Really it’s the heart of the Law, which is Old Covenant. It is the Law that prepares the way for Jesus’ message of grace. The Law tells us when we are doing wrong, and that we need to get right. But the law can’t make you right! It can help you see your guilt, and see your need for a Savior.
Now to get people there, John had to be pretty blunt with some—especially as crowds arrived. In verse 7, John sees some religious hypocrites in the bunch, and he calls them out—a brood of vipers. John isn’t preaching an empty repentance of just words, as if you can say “Sorry” to God and go right back to sinning. At verse 8 he says: “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Luke 3:8).
Fruit in the Bible is an outward show of what’s happened on the inside. You can say that you’re a good orange tree all day long, but the only way to prove it is making good oranges. So producing fruit in keeping with repentance means actually changing your actions.
And notice that repentance looks different for each person. To those who have more than they need, John told them to share. To the tax collectors, he told them to stop over-collecting. To the soldiers, he told them to stop abusing their authority by extorting money. Be content. The question for us is: what should repentance look like in your life? And are you producing fruit?
John speaks so powerfully, the people start to wonder if maybe he is the Messiah. John stops the rumors immediately in verse 16:
“John answered them all, ‘I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire’” (Luke 3:16).
John is always pointing the way to Jesus—because his message is only the beginning of the story. Don’t miss that. Repentance is the first step. Once you change your mind about the way you live, now Jesus has a clear path to enter, and He comes with forgiveness and so much more: with the Holy Spirit and with fire—a fire to live a whole new life for Him.
And back in our story, Jesus shows up. And if you look carefully you’ll see the whole Trinity—all three parts of one God, yet each part clearly distinct. At verse 21:
“When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as He was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are My Son, whom I love; with You I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:21-22).
I love that last part. The Father says to Jesus, “You are My Son whom I love.” The Father loves the Son. Never forget that God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in One, before a single part of creation came into being—God was, is, and ever shall be love.
So why was the baptism of Jesus so important? It was a baptism of repentance, but Jesus had nothing to repent of. He was sinless. Yet He went through the process so that He would fulfill every step required of man. For Jesus to die in our place, He had to, as He put it, “fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15).
Now the rest of the chapter is what we call a genealogy—the family tree that leads up to Jesus. Starting at verse 23:
“Now Jesus Himself was about thirty years old when He began His ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, the son of Melki,
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,
the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos,
the son of Nahum, the son of Esli…” (Luke 3:23-25).
And it goes on a ways from there. But if you look carefully, you have to ask whether there is a mistake in the Bible. See Matthew records Jesus’ genealogy as well, but if you compare the two, they are quite different. In Matthew’s account, Joseph is the son of Jacob (Matthew 1:16). Here in Luke 3:23, Joseph is the son of Heli, and the differences continue from there all the way back to King David. How does Joseph have two different fathers? Why is the whole line different? Is there a mistake in the Bible?
Look closer. Here in Luke, the word “son” is not in the original Greek text. It actually says “Joseph of Heli,” which in that language could be used to mean son or son-in-law. In other words, it says that Joseph is the son-in-law of Heli, meaning that Heli is Mary’s dad. See Luke was recording the bloodline of Jesus, which only goes through Mary. In the time that Luke and Matthew wrote, the difference would have been obvious. All Jews were very familiar with family lines, and finding whose father is whose would be as simple as asking anyone from Nazareth or Bethlehem.
Here’s how it works in the four gospels: Matthew presents Jesus as the King of the Jews. So he records a genealogy that starts with Abraham, the first Jew, goes through David the king, and continues through the line of the kings, all the way to Joseph. Jesus inherited the kingly line of David through Joseph. Mark on the other hand presents Jesus as the servant of all. A servant needs no genealogy, so Mark doesn’t give one. Luke presents Jesus as the Son of Man—focusing on His humanity. And so Luke’s genealogy goes through the bloodline that starts with Mary and goes all the way back to Adam, the very first man. Now Mary and Joseph both descended from David, so Mary has the right bloodline but isn’t in the line of kings. That came through fathers. Thus Jesus had both the bloodline and the line of succession. Finally, John’s gospel presents Jesus as the Son of God. No genealogy required there, so John goes back to the very beginning, where Jesus existed before time began.
Read Luke 3 today. And read through the genealogy with it. You might find some hidden gems amongst all the names—like Jesus’ great-great-great-grandfather Matth, which is better than being named Algebra or Trigonometry. Though if that’s your name, more power to you. More importantly, take John’s message to heart. Examine the path to your heart, and let John’s words clear that path for Jesus. If you need to repent, repent. And I’ll meet you back here in chapter 4.
