Tonight we come to the third chapter of the gospel of Luke. You can find that on page 858 in the Bibles located in the pew in front of you. And this is another scene change in the gospel of Luke as we shift from chapter 2 now to chapter 3. And some of you may have heard of the 1977 sci-fi action adventure film that David Felker mentioned a few minutes ago, Star Wars. There are a few fans probably still out there. But one of the editing techniques that is associated with the Star Wars franchise is what’s called as “the white transition.” And a white transition is a change from one scene to the other, and so one shot moves off of the screen at the same time another shot fills the screen. It’s a way to jump from one part of the story to another. So it’s a way to go from the desert to the Death Star. It’s a way to go from Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers to Luke Skywalker with C-3PO and R2-D2. And it jumps back and forth that way. It’s like, you see that in even the most recent episode of Star Wars from 2019, it’s this sort of nostalgic link back to the original movie from 1977.
And I guess that’s just a product of my childhood because those scene changes come to my mind as we read through the first few chapters of Luke’s gospel and there’s a scene change from one to the other because the storyline in the gospel is shifting back and forth. It’s going from John the Baptist to Jesus and back to John the Baptist and then to Jesus again. And tonight we are back to John the Baptist. We were told first how John the Baptist’s birth was foretold to Zechariah by the angel, and then that was followed by Jesus’ birth being foretold to Mary by the angel. And then there is the birth of John to Elizabeth and we’re told that John the Baptist, he grew, he became strong; he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance. And then there’s Jesus’ birth in Luke chapter 2 and He grew and became strong and He is being prepared for His public ministry. And now we are in chapter 3 and it’s John the Baptist again. John the Baptist is starting his public ministry. He is going around preaching and he is baptizing in the area around the Jordan River and the crowds have come around him. And next week we’ll shift to Jesus and Jesus begins His public ministry in the next part of the gospel. So there is this clear pattern. There is a structure to Luke’s gospel.
And I think there is something important to see there as the storyline shifts back and forth from John to Jesus, that even in the parts that are focused on John the Baptist, the main point, the main focus is Jesus. Because when his birth is foretold, we are told that he will prepare the way for Jesus. And when he is born, Zechariah, his father, erupts into this song of praise, and yet the strange thing about it is that this song of praise is all about Jesus; it’s all about the Savior and very little about his son, John. And now in John’s ministry, he says in verse 16 that we will read here, that “He who is mightier than I is coming, the straps of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” And so as we come to this part of the storyline and we come to John the Baptist’s ministry, we are not going to hear that much more about John in the rest of Luke’s gospel. He is going to fade into the background. Yes, he has a prominent place, a prominent role in these opening chapters, but the central figure is Jesus. John has an important ministry to fulfill, yes. It is to point to the One who is greater. It is to point to Jesus.
So get ready for what John is going to say to us tonight. John is not sweet and sentimental. His message is one that is direct, it’s honest, it’s unsettling. It has a bit of a hard edge to it, even. But it’s grace. It’s the grace of God that leads to salvation in Christ Jesus. It’s the grace of God that leads to the fullness of His pleasure that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. And so as we read this passage, we want to see two things. We’ll see the holiness of God and amazing grace. The holiness of God and the grace of God, the amazing grace of God. Let’s pray before we read the passage.
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for these words that Luke has written down for us, put in order, structured in such a way to direct our attention to Christ. We ask that You would help us to see our need for Jesus tonight, that You would unsettle us, that You would disrupt us out of our comfort, out of the complacency with which we live in sin and oftentimes rebellion against You. And if there is any here tonight who does not know Christ, has not seen Him in all of His beauty and His salvation, that You would draw them to Yourself and bring glory to Your name in the name of Jesus. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 3. We’ll read the first twenty-two verses:
“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 Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 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. 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 paths 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.’
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? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’
And the crowds asked him, ‘What then shall we do?’ And he answered them, ‘Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.’ Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, ‘Teacher, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Collect no more than you are authorized to do.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.’
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, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 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.’
So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. 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.
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, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
The Holiness of God
We don’t like to talk about these things. If we had our way about it, we would skip from verse 3 down to verse 18. Verse 3 says that he went into the region of the Jordan. He was “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” And verse 18 says that “with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.” Forgiveness and good news – those are topics that people want to hear about, but you won’t find many people that have a problem with a positive and an uplifting message. But the problem that we run into is when we get into the details of what John the Baptist preached because he talked about judgment and he talked about wrath and he talked about unquenchable fire. Those things are conversation killers. Those are things that we would rather leave off the table.
There was a story a few years ago, you may have heard that a certain denomination wanted to include “In Christ Alone” in their hymnbook but they wanted to change some of the words where it says, “On the cross, the wrath of God was satisfied,” they wanted to remove that and say that “On the cross, the love of God was magnified.” And of course that’s true, but there’s an example there of wanting to cover up and maybe erase the talk about the wrath of God. But that’s what John led with. He led with the wrath of God. He said, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” John the Baptist confronted people’s lifestyles and he called on them to change. And those are the kind of things that make us uncomfortable, isn’t it? But that’s the kind of talk that doesn’t really mesh with good southern manners and hospitality; we’d rather not talk about those things.
But this is the message of salvation. John was the one who was written about in the book of Isaiah – “The voice of one crying in the wilderness.” He was the voice of one who “prepares the way of the Lord,” who “removes the obstacles and breaks down the resistance so that all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” So there’s an urgency to John’s message and he holds out to the people in his message one of only two options – either the salvation of God or the wrath of God. Those are the stakes. Those are the stakes whenever the Gospel of Jesus Christ is presented. It’s either repentance and faith in Christ for salvation and deliverance or either it is rejection of Christ and the punishment that our sins deserve. And the punishment that our sins deserve should make us shutter; it should make us tremble because the wrath of God is awful. And in John’s ministry and in the prophets before him, we see that the wrath of God is compared to fire, to burning flames. He says in verse 9, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” In verse 17, “His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear the threshing floor, to gather wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unqualified fire.”
And that’s what we find throughout the Bible when we read the prophets and even those before them, we find those two things paired together. It’s the anger of God and the devastation of burning flames. One prophet said this, “Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the heat of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken into pieces by Him.” What do we read in the book of Hebrews? The writer says, “Our God is a consuming fire.” We’re used to talking about fire; we’re used to dealing with fire when it’s contained right, when it’s in our fireplaces or in our grills. And it gives us heat and it helps us to cook our hamburgers and it’s contained. It’s safe in a sense. But that’s not what this is talking about. This fire is outside of our control. It will not be extinguished. It’s the fire of judgment and of defeat.
There was a book written in the last year and it tells the story about the invention of napalm. Napalm was that controversial substance that was used in bombs and flamethrowers in World War II and in the Vietnam War and other places. It’s the gel that is highly flammable and it sticks and coats things and burns with an uncontrollable fire. The writer of the book says that it burns at 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and when it was used in bombings in World War II that it created a fire of such intensity and duration that it created and sustained its own wind system. The smoke reached 25,000 feet. The glow of the fire was visible from 150 miles away and the carnage and the destruction caused by the napalm is unspeakable. It’s unimaginable. And the whole thing is disturbing just to read about that sort of devastation that comes through fire. And yet that cannot compare to the wrath of God. And when John the Baptist talks about unquenchable fire, that’s merely a metaphor. It’s just a metaphor to express something of the horror and the anguish that comes with the punishment of sin because the reality is surely much worse. It is God’s wrath unleashed and unrelieved and without end.
Someone has said before that if you have never stood before God and been afraid then you’ve never stood before God and considered His wrath, His anger, His holiness. Because God’s wrath is disturbing and John’s message is meant to be disturbing. And if we don’t think that it is and if we try to downplay or to avoid the language of fire and judgment and hell, that’s because we’ve failed to recognize the absolute holiness of God and the sinfulness of our sin. God is holy. He is set apart. He is unapproachable in His purity and in His glory. Think about what we find in Luke’s gospel when these angels appear to people in Luke’s gospel. What happens? Zechariah was troubled. Mary was afraid. The shepherds were filled with great fear. And here, these angels, they are the representatives, the messengers of God’s glory. They are intermediaries between God and man and the people are undone. How much more when we think about the glory and the holiness of God Himself.
And what do we find in Isaiah chapter 6 in the call of Isaiah as a prophet? That there are the angels, surrounding the throne of heaven, surrounding God, and it tells us that the seraphim have six wings and with two they cover their faces and with two they cover their feet and with two they fly and they cry out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! The whole earth is full of His glory!” The angels in heaven are unsettled by God’s holiness. That’s because His holiness is completely incompatible with sin and our sin is more offensive to God than we could ever imagine. He hates sin. And of course we recoil at certain sins too, don’t we? We recoil when we hear about outright evil in the world around us, when we hear about abortion and human trafficking and genocide. It’s upsetting to think about those things. We want justice for the Holocaust and for 9-11.
But then there are those sins that Jerry Bridges calls “respectable sins” – the things like worldliness and gossip and indulging in food and drink. And it’s those respectable sins that seem to be more in line with what John the Baptist is preaching against in the area around the Jordan River when he confronts the people. He says in verse 11, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” What does he say to the tax collectors? He says, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” To the soldiers, he says, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, but be content with your wages.” You see what he’s doing there? He’s preaching against ignoring the needy, ignoring the needs of those around him. He’s preaching against greed and being a bully and discontentment. And he’s also challenging, in his ministry, he’s challenging the people for their religious presumption, for thinking that their family name, their family background would have something to do with their standing before God, that they could claim to be connected to Abraham and be right with God. They were presumptuous in their religion. And he called out Herod. He called our Herod for marital infidelity and divorce.
The Amazing Grace of God
And all these things that John the Baptist is dealing with, those are the things that we find all too often we tolerate and our culture tolerates those things, and yet we have to remember that every sin is an offense to God. Every sin is rebellion against God. And every sinner justly deserves God’s displeasure. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Even our best works are tainted and polluted by sin and are like filthy rags before God. And yet what do we find this holy God doing in this passage? How do we find this holy, holy, holy God relating to a sinful people in these verses? It’s with grace. It’s amazing grace. Remember, that’s what John’s name means. John’s name means “God is gracious.” And while John may seem like an angry prophet, he may seem like he was out there to pick a fight – what’s he actually doing? He’s not leaving the people in their sin. No, he is going to them. He is receiving those who are guilty to him and he is proclaiming to them a message. He is presenting to them a sign of forgiveness of sin and he is pointing the way to the Savior. He is pointing the way not to himself but to the Christ, the one who is mightier than He, the one of whose sandals he is not worthy to untie. In other words, John is not indifferent to the crowds. He’s not indifferent to their plight of sin and guilt. He’s not indifferent to their spiritual condition. No, he has a love and a burden for them. A love and a burden for them and for their salvation.
You know, medical experts will tell you that some of the most aggressive medical treatment – things like a ventilator and dialysis and a feeding tube – that those things are aggressive and they actually inflict suffering. No matter what the case, they inflict suffering, and yet they can be used in order to sustain life, to treat an underlying illness, to heal and to maintain life. When they can’t be used to treat that underlying illness, then often times they are just delaying death. But there’s something about that harsh, aggressive treatment that must be done to get at the root of the illness. And that’s what John the Baptist is doing. He is preaching about danger of remaining in their sins in order to lead them to healing and to salvation and to life in Christ. He was sent by God for that very purpose. And this is all God’s grace. This is God’s mercy to rescue a people who are deserving and destined for judgment. This is God’s initiative to pursue sinners. This is God’s great love not only to provide John the Baptist to warn the people of the danger they face and to point them to the way of salvation, but it’s also God’s grace to send to them His Son to accomplish that salvation in full.
And what do we read in verse 21? “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, ‘You are My beloved Son, with You I am well pleased.’” “With You I am well pleased.” With His beloved Son, God is pleased to deliver sinners from the judgment that we deserve and to pour out on us all the blessings of His love to those who receive Christ by faith. We need Jesus. We need Jesus more than anything else and Jesus is the only one that we need. There is no other answer. There is no other hope. There is no other Savior. There is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. And so repent. Repent today. Tonight. Turn from your sin. Turn from your rebellion and your guilty record. Turn to Jesus. Go to Him and you will be saved. Go to Him and you will find forgiveness. Believe in Him and know the joy and the pleasure of Your heavenly Father forever and ever.
This One who is the beloved Son, the One in whom the Father is well pleased, He has paid a great cost for you and for your salvation because He went to the cross and He was rejected and He was mocked and He was despised. And in His suffering and in His death, He called out with a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.” And it was there on the cross that He bore our sins. He took the penalty that our sins deserve. He drank in full the cup of God’s wrath. Think about that. This One in whom we read, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” He drank the cup of God’s wrath to the full and He did that for you. He did that for salvation in order to pay the penalty for your sins and to give you in the place of your sin by faith the gift of His righteous record that we might stand before God accepted and forgiven and secure forever and ever. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might in Him become the righteousness of God.” He did that so that we might hear in the last day, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master!” Flee the wrath to come. Flee to Christ. Repent of your sins. Turn to God and see the salvation that is found in Jesus and in Jesus alone – the Beloved.
And if you haven’t done that, the message from this chapter is the most urgent message that could ever be before you. To turn from your sin. To turn from the certainty of God’s wrath for eternity and to turn to Christ and instead receive His love, forgiveness, and the pleasure of God forever and ever. It’s a hard message and yet it’s God’s grace and it leads to salvation. It leads to blessing forever.
And if you have done that, if you have come to Christ by faith, there’s a word for us in these verses as well. There’s assurance. There’s assurance here because how could we ever doubt God’s love for us or how could we ever think that we could do enough to deserve His love because it was out of His love for us, “while we were still sinners,” that God sent His Son to redeem us and to save us from our sin. And if we are found in Christ by faith, then we are secure. We are secure in the beloved Son. We are loved forever. We have the well pleasing mark of God upon us in Christ Jesus.
And then there’s conviction. Why would we ever trifle with sin? Why would we tolerate dishonesty and lust and grudges and ingratitude and idolatry and selfishness when we see what our sin deserves, when we see what we have been rescued from, when we see what Christ has done for us to save us from the penalty of that sin and that He has gone to the cross and received the punishment that we deserved? Out of gratitude for Him, bear fruits in keeping with repentance. Turn from those sins. Let’s not try to merely do things that will ease some of the struggles of our lives. Let’s change our lifestyles. Let’s change our lives, change our behaviors, change the pattern of our lives according to what God’s Word says to us because we are so grateful for what God has done for us in Christ. Why would we avoid repentance, why would we avoid change when it is done to bring glory and honor and praise to our great Savior, Jesus Christ?
And then lastly, there’s hope. There’s hope in our trials. What do these verses say to us about suffering? Well they say to us that in our suffering, no matter how hard and difficult it may be, that it will never be as bad as we deserve and it will never be as bad as what Christ endured for us on our behalf and in our place. And it will never be the penalty for our sin. Yes, we may face the consequences of our sin sometimes, but we will never, if we are trusting in Christ, we will never pay the penalty, not one drop, for our sin, because Jesus paid it all. And our suffering is not the penalty of our sin. Our suffering actually may be given to us from the love of God to lead us and to direct us away from sin and into blessing. And it reminds us that what Christ has done for us is that He has secured us a place where there is no more suffering or sickness or pain or death. He has secured us a place where there is only pleasure forevermore in God’s presence. The suffering of this present time is not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Thomas Watson said, in his book, the puritan, Thomas Watson, years ago in his book on repentance, he had the line there – “Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” “Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” John the Baptist comes to us tonight in Luke chapter 3 and he’s showing to us, he’s holding out to us the bitterness of sin; the bitterness of sin before a holy God. And he’s holding out to us the sweetness of Christ; the amazing grace of God in Christ Jesus – that He loves us and gave Himself for us so that we might have the love of God, the pleasure of God, for all of eternity. Praise God that He has done that for us. Let’s pray.
Our Father, we praise You for Your Word. We praise You for Your rescuing grace that You have not left us in our sin but You have pursued us all the way to the cross. And by the resurrection, You have guaranteed for us a place in Your presence forever. Restore to us the joy of our salvation. Overwhelm us and overflow in us a gratitude and a love for You and for Christ, that Christ would be sweeter and sweeter today and tomorrow and that You would send us out to serve You with fear and with joy. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.