Luke 3:23–38

0:00 Well, some of you know that I'm not supposed to be here today. For months and months and months, I've been planning for a trip to take my parents and my brother over to the United Kingdom in order to show them some things that I've wanted them to see for a whole lot of years. The main point of that trip was basically for my mom and dad to be able to go see the two airfields that their own fathers flew bombers from in World War II. That was kind of the whole purpose of the trip.

0:31 Of course, many of you know that like three days before we were supposed to get on the plane, my dad went down with a pretty nasty case of pancreatitis. And so he is still actually in the hospital. And you can be praying for him as we're hoping that the inflammation in his pancreas will go down very, very quickly. We were supposed, however, to be in the UK this week. And on Thursday, one of the things that I was going to do for my parents was not just take them to the airfields that their fathers flew from. But we were going to go in search of what I have come to call Castle Gilbert.

1:03 It is the ancestral seat of my family going back, at least for me, 17 generations to the great. I don't know if any of you have ever heard from this guy, but if you haven't heard of him, you need to hear of him. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who was a pirate under Queen Elizabeth I, who actually was the founder of the British Empire. He was the first guy. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Was the first guy to claim land outside the British Isles in the name of the British sovereign, Newfoundland in Canada.

1:37 And so he's known as the founder of the British Empire. So anyway, there's a castle out in the windswept fields and hills of Devon, England. It's like Western England. this beautiful old 11th century castle. That's when most of it was built. And now it's owned by the National Trust of England. So it's a sort of tourist attraction that not many people go to because it's not all that impressive. But it was impressive to me and so we went. So we drive our little car down through these tiny little roads up to this castle. There it is. And we walk up and there's a volunteer gardener out in the garden in front of the castle and she's planting flowers or whatever it is. And so I just walked up and announced myself as Greg Gilbert, 17th grandson of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and you would have thought the king had returned. She gave this high-pitched sort of squeal and welcomed me as if I'd just come back from a great crusade or something. And she said, come with me. I'm going to usher you into the castle. So we went into the castle, and there in front of us is the guy who takes the money for the tickets, and she announces me as the 17th grandson of Sir Humphrey, and he couldn't

2:41 care less. It was still 15 pounds a person for my family to go into Castle Gilbert and look around it. Well, we looked around. It's not very big. It's got like a, you know, the great hall with the big, you know, roaring fireplace. And then there's some living quarters that you can look at and all the rest. But tucked over into a corner, there was, I realized as I started looking at it, a family tree of the Gilberts that traced all the descendants of Sir Humphrey all the way down to the guy who currently lives in the castle.

3:13 And I realized, because my brother's done some of this genealogical work, I realized that at one point on this family tree, there's the guy that my own family branched off from when we left and went to America. And when I sort of saw that and saw how that line went up then to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, I was just kind of taken with this deep sense of history, of rootedness. I don't know if you've ever had that experience. It's a pretty incredible thing, and it's why sites like Ancestry.com are so popular these days.

3:48 People want to know where they come from, and it's really something. When Ancestry.com sends you the little email that says, we've found another branch in your family tree, or even better, we've managed to dig back a little bit further. My brothers traced us back, the Gilberts, to something like the 800s. Like we're talking William the Conqueror type stuff here, Edward the Confessor type stuff here. And we were not an incredibly great family, nothing like that. And yet it gives me an incredible sense of rootedness to know where I came from.

4:21 I think that's a pretty universal human thing. It's important for us to know where we came from. And that was no less important for first century Jews as they considered who Jesus was and where he came from. Well, today we're going to be continuing our study of the book of Luke. Take a Bible, if you will, and turn over to page 859, especially if you're using one of these Red Pew Bibles. Otherwise, you're looking for Luke 3, and we're going to be looking at the section of text from Luke 23 to 38.

4:53 Now, once you get there, to Luke chapter 3, verse 23, I want you to look at those verses, that massive, unbroken paragraph of texts and names. And if you feel the need to groan, I want you to go ahead and do it now. Because you're probably looking at that going, what in the world? Why on earth are we going to spend an entire sermon on this? I mean, surely the better thing to do would be to take this gigantic list of names and just tack it on to the beginning or end of something else in the story.

5:30 Like, Greg, you literally could spend five minutes on this, maybe, but now you're about to spend, eh, 45-ish, talking about this list of names. My hope is that by the time we finish today, you'll see why we're doing this, why we're taking the time to do this, to let this genealogy, as it's called, stand on its own. It's because in a unique way, like nowhere else in the entire Bible, this genealogy reveals to us something about who Jesus is and what he's come to do.

6:02 All right, so far in Luke's book, right up to this point, we've come right up to the point where Jesus is about to begin his public ministry. So we've looked at, in the first two and a half chapters, the story of his birth, his infancy, his time in the temple when he was 12 years old, and last week his baptism at the hands of John the Baptist, where the Holy Spirit, if you remember, came and lighted on him in the form of a dove, and a voice came out of heaven to affirm that he really is the Son of God and the suffering servant of Isaiah. At that point, though, right on the cusp of Jesus kind of going public with his ministry, Luke presses pause on the whole narrative to give us this list of names of Jesus' ancestors.

6:42 Now, why does he do that? And more particularly, why does he do it here? I mean, why didn't you do it like Matthew where you sort of front load all of that stuff or put it, you know, during the infancy narrative when he's introducing Joseph and Mary? Why not do it there? Why do you put it here when we're all geared up for Jesus to just start doing stuff already? Well, let's read it. And as we do, I want you to see if you can think of any reason Luke might have put this genealogy here. Look with me at verse 23.

7:15 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about 30 years of age. Being the son, as was supposed to be Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Methath, the son of Levi. Just kidding, skip down to verse 31. The son of Meleah, the son of Mena, the son of Maratha, the son of Nathan, the son of David. The son of Jesse, the son of Obed, now skip down to 34. The son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, now skip down to 38, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. Now you may send your thank you notes to greg at thirdavenue.org for not making you sit through that whole thing. But what I've done here is that I've sort of hit the highlights that Jesus has mentioned here as being the son of David, the son of Abraham, The son of Adam, and finally, the son of God.

8:11 So, as I read that little bit of this list of names, what did you come up with? Why do you think this genealogy is here? Well, I'll tell you why it's here. It works a little bit like you showing your driver's license to the people at the airport. Essentially, right on the cusp of Jesus going and starting his mission, beginning his public ministry, Luke shows up Jesus' credentials before he sets out. In other words, he's proving that Jesus is not a pretender to the throne of Israel. In fact, he has every legal claim and every legal right to be the Jewish Messiah and, in fact, to be the Savior of the world.

8:45 He's not a pretender. He's not a fake. He's not just one of these pseudo-Messiahs that came along. He had every legal right of anyone in the course of the history of the world, every legal right to be who he claimed to be. Now, you can see that in the sort of highlights of this that I just read to you. I mean, the first thing he does is that he shows that he's a descendant of David, just like the Messiah was supposed to be. God had said to David way back, a thousand years earlier, when your days, David, are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring afterwards who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom forever.

9:18 Luke is saying, look, he's a son of David. We got that covered. Second, he shows he's a descendant of Abraham. He's an Israelite. So somebody that's qualified to fulfill the promise of Genesis. I, God said, will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring afterwards. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And then third and last, it shows that he's a descendant of Adam. He's a human being and also the son of God. And therefore, as our statement of faith puts it, he is in every way qualified to be a suitable, a compassionate, and an all-sufficient Savior.

9:53 So that's why it's there. In all of those different parts, what Luke is doing is sort of, before it all begins, he's sort of flashing Jesus' credentials at us before Jesus sets out on his mission. And that gives us the main idea. The main idea that Luke's trying to get across to us, that he wants to nail into our minds, is that out of the long broken line of humanity, God has finally sent one who has the right to rule and redeem and rescue. Out of the long broken line of humanity, finally, there's one who has the right to reign and to redeem and to rescue.

10:27 All right, here's what I want to do. I want to talk through three points this morning in the sermon, so three critical aspects of who Jesus really was. So number one, we're going to talk about Jesus as the son of David. Number two, we're going to skip all the way down then to the beginning, sort of skipping the Abraham part, actually, if you're tracking there. We're going to skip that and go right to Jesus, number two, as the son of Adam and talk about the ramifications of that. And then we're going to talk about Jesus, finally, as the son of God, the very last thing that Luke says. In the process, my hope and prayer is that you will maybe again, maybe for the first time, come face to face with the stunning reality that God has sent his son to save you from your sins.

11:09 And my hope is that the king, standing there in his beauty, in his glory, will fill up your mind to the point that you say, this is my savior and no one else. My loyalty, my allegiance, my faith, everything is in him. And I'm giving my life to him from start to finish. So let's dive in. Number one, first thing Luke says here and wants us to understand is that Jesus is the legitimate son of David. So if you look at 31 again, you can see that. You've got this line of fathers and sons that leads down to David.

11:40 And essentially, Luke is trying to convince you and everyone else that's reading the book that Jesus actually is descended from David and therefore has a claim to the Davidic throne. God had promised David, I'm going to give you an offspring from your body, he says, that will sit on your throne forever and I'll establish his kingdom for all eternity. Luke is trying to say that's the God. Jesus has that kind of claim to be from the body of David. Now, we're going to talk about the ramifications of that, what it means for Jesus to be the heir to the throne of David.

12:14 in that sense, and especially what that means for us who, you know, not Israelites, right? We're not ancient Israelites. We don't have any particular stake in the throne of David, and yet it becomes really important to us, and we're going to talk about that. But before we do, I want to take a sort of 30,000-foot view of the whole list, because there are some just weirdnesses about this list that are really important. Now, just kind of let your eyes roll over it. On the surface, it's a pretty standard Greek genealogy. It's the kind that you see more or less in the Old Testament.

12:49 The Hebrews had their own way of doing things. The Greek had their way of doing it. This is the kind of thing you see all the time, though. It's in the Greek style. In fact, it very much reminds us of the genealogy that begins Matthew's gospel, but it's got some glaring differences from Matthew's gospel. So, for one thing, Matthew's genealogy only extends as far back as Abraham, where Luke takes his genealogy all the way back to Adam. Now, why would he do that? Why would Matthew stop at Abraham, but Luke would take it all the way back to Adam? Well, it's because Luke's goal is not just to show that Jesus is a Jew. That was Matthew's goal. He just wanted, he's speaking to Jews, and he wants to say, this man is one of us, and he holds a claim to the throne of David, kind of full stopped. That's all he really cares about. Luke's goal is not just to show that Jesus is an Israelite, but to show that he's human. He wants to show that Jesus fulfills the title of son of man. That's what Jesus calls himself throughout the book. He's the son of man in every way possible. He's the son of

13:54 man from Daniel, but he's also a son of man in the sense that he is human, a son of Adam. Also, another thing you'll notice is that Matthew's genealogy is highly stylized, meaning that he winds up leaving out certain names in order to get his three sets of 14, right? You remember that from Matthew? He kind of points it out to you. It's 14 generations, then 14 generations, then 14 generations. And, you know, in a secret all its own, what that's doing is screaming, David, David, David. That's what Matthew's doing. Highly stylized. And in order to get those 14s, he has to leave some people out. Luke doesn't do that. Luke just has father, son, father, son, father, son, all the way down with, as far as we can tell, no gaps. But then, I think most perplexingly, like the thing that has really thrown people for 2,000 years, is that there's the fact that at a certain point,

14:54 Luke's genealogy just totally departs from Matthew's and gives an entirely different set of names. So think about it. You can even look down if you want to. If you work backwards from the end of this, from Adam to Abraham, right? If you start at verse 38, go all the way back up through 34, Matthew doesn't have those names at all. He stops at Abraham, so there's no problem. In fact, Luke just sort of uses Old Testament genealogies to fill in everything from Adam all the way back to Abraham. From Abraham to David, so from verse 34 up through 31, there's also no problem because Luke and Matthew agree entirely in that list of names.

15:32 In fact, the only difference is there are a couple of places where somebody is called by a different name, but it's the same person. Or this is where Matthew ends up leaving out some people from his genealogy to stylize it. He's got his own reasons for that. But the problem comes starting from David all the way back to Jesus. Because Matthew traces Jesus' lineage through Solomon, David's son. And Luke traces his lineage through David's other random son, 19 sons. And this is just like number eight in the middle of it, right?

16:05 Through another of David's sons, Nathan. And so from David back to Jesus, between Matthew and Luke, you wind up with entirely different sets of names. So what's going on with that? Well, through the centuries, people who are skeptical of the Bible have looked at that and said, well, that proves it, right? The Bible is just totally messed up because it's got two different genealogies for Jesus. Y'all don't even know where your Savior came from.

16:36 You don't know if he's a son of David through Solomon or a son of David through Nathan. You have no idea what you're talking about. And even these two apostles are disagreeing with one another about his lineage. But you think about it a little bit, and I don't think that quite makes sense. I mean, think about it. Luke, in all likelihood, already had Matthew's gospel written down when he wrote. He knew about Matthew's gospel. He quotes Matthew's gospel at various points. So do we really think that Luke, looking at Matthew's gospel, looks at that genealogy in Matthew chapter 1 and says, you know what, no, that's wrong, I disagree.

17:14 And I'm going to write down a wholly different genealogy. And for that matter, if you've got these two different genealogies, then why haven't 2,000 years of Christians just been super bothered by this? And why haven't Christians just like seized up and been like, this can't possibly be right? Why doesn't it bother us? Well, it doesn't bother us because it's been clear from the very beginning that Matthew and Luke are just doing different things with their genealogies, though exactly what they're doing differently has been debated to no end.

17:48 So let me give you a couple, and then I'll tell you what I think is right. One idea, first floated by a guy named Julius Africanus about 1,800 years ago, think like 220 A.D., right? One idea floated by this guy is that Matthew traces what's called the royal line of Jesus, but not necessarily the biological line. Does that make sense? The royal line, the legal royal line, but not necessarily the biological line. So what Matthew is doing is saying, look, here's the set of guys who have the claim to the throne.

18:22 This is the list of heirs. However they got there, it's not necessarily by being born of the prior king, Because sometimes you could have adoptions, you could have a king that was childless, all kinds of stuff going on. But whoever has the legal claim to the throne, that's who Matthew is tracing down. He even had this thing called leveret marriage sometimes where a guy would die childless. And then his brother would marry his wife. And any children that was had from that union would be counted toward the dead guy's lineage. There's all kinds of weirdness and technicalities that are going on. But the point is that you've got a legal royal line in Matthew.

18:57 This is what Africanus said that's not necessarily biological. That's what Africanus said Matthew is doing. On the other hand, he said Luke is tracing the actual biological line. So physical blood relationships between father and son. From Jesus to Joseph to Heli to Matan all the way on back down toward Adam. That's what Africanus said. Okay. Now think about that for just a minute. That, I think, is a pretty good attempt.

19:30 And I think Julius Africanus actually moved us forward nicely there in trying to understand what's going on there. Because clearly there's two different things going on. But there's a fatal flaw in what he said. There's a fatal flaw in saying that Luke records the biological genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, through Heli, to David, to Abraham, to Adam. What is that fatal flaw? Think about it. What is the fatal flaw in saying it's a biological genealogy?

20:06 Well, look at verse 23. Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about 30 years of age, being the son. And look at this wild parenthesis here. Being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph. In other words, everybody thought Jesus was the son of Joseph, but Luke knows he wasn't because he was born of the Virgin Mary. And if Jesus is not the biological son of Joseph, which Luke obviously knows, it causes a huge problem because Jesus is actually cut off from this entire family tree.

20:47 He's not a biological descendant through Joseph of any of these people. So what's the point of a genealogy that's all about proving to you biological descent? That Jesus comes from the body of David, that he is an Israelite, and yet he's not blood-related to any of them. What's the point? But what if Luke isn't actually tracing Joseph's genealogy at all?

21:19 What if he's tracing Mary's? Now, I realize that there in verse 23, it says, quite literally, Joseph. I see that. But that little parenthetical there, as was supposed, has always made people wonder if something else isn't up. And I think it turns out that there is, in fact, something else up here. So for one thing, I want you to keep in mind that Luke is writing here for an educated, upper-crust Greek audience here.

21:55 He's writing for the great and excellent Theophilus, if you remember from chapter 1, verse 1. I write these things to you, most great and excellent Theophilus, so that you can know for certain that these things are true. So he's writing for an upper-crust, excellent Greek audience, highly educated. And the thing is, if you look at historical records, when the Greeks did a genealogy, they always ran it through fathers, never mothers. greek genealogies always ran through fathers never the women but then if you're luke and you've got to put a greek genealogy in this thing if you're going to satisfy the most excellent upper crust greek theophilus you got to have one but what exactly do you do with a guy who has no biological father to run the genealogy through how do you do that i mean you can't just skip it it's critical This biology, this biological thing is critical in establishing his claims.

22:51 He's got to be from the body of David or it doesn't work. So how do you make it happen? Well, you do probably exactly what Luke does here. You name his adopted father. You throw a little shade on that adopted father with that parenthesis, so it was supposed. And then you go back to his closest biological male relative, his maternal grandfather. Mary's father Heli. Okay, but if that's true, then if Heli is sort of Joseph's adopted father through marriage, but he's actually Mary's biological father, if that's true, why not just name Mary? Well, the answer is that you just don't do that in Greek genealogy. In fact, anytime there's a Greek genealogy, if a daughter for some reason is needed to establish legal lineage, you always, if you're a Greek genealogical writer, you always substitute her husband's name for her, and that's what Luke does here, I think. He substitutes Joseph, her husband, in for Mary, because you can't put a

23:52 woman in there, and then he says that Joseph then is the adopted son of Heli, and on, and on, and on, and on. But here's what nails it down, though. This genealogy simply cannot be Joseph's line. It just can't be Joseph's line, because if it is, then it fails completely at its purpose. I mean, you see why, right? This thing is trying to show that Jesus is the real offspring of Abraham, and the real son of David. But if it's Joseph's lineage, then he's cut off in the very first step because he's not Joseph's biological son.

24:24 It just can't be that. So this has got to be Mary's genealogy. I mean, consistent with Greek custom, this is the way they always did it. Joseph's name is substituted in there for her, but it does what it claims to do. It shows, through Mary, that Jesus is the blood descendant of David and Abraham and Adam. Now, take just a second, pause, and think about what this does. When you take these two genealogies together now, when you put them both together. In Matthew, what you've got is Joseph's line, his royal line going all the way back to David.

24:55 This is the legal royal line back to David. In fact, if Israel had had a king at the time that Jesus was born, that king would have been Joseph. It would have been King Joseph. I mean, he's stuck as a carpenter, right? But he's supposed to be the king of Israel had there been one. So Jesus, as the legally adopted son of Joseph, is the rightful heir of that royal line. He's the one guy who has a claim to the throne after his father, Joseph. So that line of royal legal claim is exhausted in Jesus.

25:26 There will never be another heir. That's what Matthew does. And in Luke, you've got, I think, Mary's line, which shows that Jesus doesn't just have a legal claim to the throne, but he's also the heir of a bloodline as well. Like God said to David, I'll give you an offspring who comes from your body. Not just legally adopted or something like that, but from your body. And Jesus has that. So in both senses, the legal, royal sense and the blood sense, Luke is saying that Jesus is entirely qualified to sit on the throne of David.

25:58 Now, there's one more sort of theological, biblical layer to this. And even though it's all a little bit tedious, I think if you'll lock in and listen and track along, I think you'll see that it's just absolutely mind-blowing. So Matthew traces the royal line from David down toward Joseph and ultimately to Jesus. But the problem, it turns out, is that that royal line that Matthew traces has a massive problem. Because it has somebody in it who was cursed by God.

26:31 It happened way back in Jeremiah to a king called Jeconiah, who's included in Matthew's genealogy. And listen to what Jeremiah said about this guy, Jeconiah. He says, Now think about that. Think about that. There's a curse on the royal line that says no one who's descended from this scoundrel Jeconiah will ever sit on the throne.

27:03 Nobody who's a blood descendant of him will ever be king of Israel. God will not allow it. So what does that mean? It means that in Matthew's genealogy, everybody who comes after this guy, Jeconiah, Sheeltiel, Zerubbabel, etc., etc., etc. It's like the old, you know, family feud exes that come on top of him every time. Jeconiah, Sheeltiel, Zerubbabel, and you go on, on, on 14 generations until you get to Joseph. And then it's, he's cursed as well because he's a blood descendant of Jeconiah.

27:36 It's just not happening. Now, think about this. Think about it. If Jesus had been a blood descendant, a blood son of Joseph, guess what would have happened to him as well? You can't be king because you're a blood descendant of Jeconiah. But the amazing, mind-blowing thing about this whole thing is that God in his wisdom and in his providence, short-circuited that whole thing because he gave Jesus to Joseph as an adopted son not a blood son so that Jesus had every right to claim the throne and yet he was freed from the curse and through Mary here in Luke chapter 3 he gets the bloodline so that he actually is from the body of David see what's going on you see what God's done here through Mary he gets the bloodline. Through his adopted father, Joseph, he gets an uncursed legal claim and bam, there's a new king in town. It's the only way for that to happen and God did it. Look, I, you know, I think, I

28:40 don't know how much you've studied the story of the Bible. If you've been here at Third Avenue for a while, then you've studied the story of the Bible with us a lot. But I think it's worth just marveling here for just a second at God's precision in this whole thing and his sense of drama. I mean, this is an incredible story, mind-blowing surprise solution to a seemingly unsolvable problem. There are ways that I could, you know, pastorally apply this to your life, right? I mean, I could say, what does this have to do with you? Because that's what Christians always ask us. What does this have to do with me? Right? And I could say to you, look, if you have a complicated problem, God can solve it and all that. And that's great. That's fine. That's true. But sometimes I think the better move for Christians is not just to turn our eyes immediately to what does this have to do with me but just to take our eyes off ourselves and our own problems for a second and just marvel at what God has done to save us. It's good for us to look at this and just kind of go oh my gosh and see the twinkle in God's eyes. See the delight on his face as we stand in awe of what he has managed to pull

29:46 off. I mean it's as if for a thousand years God was saying yeah you think you're in trouble. Watch this. Watch what I'm about to do to make this work. And that curse on Jeconiah was devastating for the nation. It meant that the only people who were even legally eligible to wear the crown of Israel were going to be prevented by God from doing so. Checkmate. You can't even have a king. But then all of a sudden this baby was born. His mother, a descendant of David by blood, his adopted father in the line of the kings and finally the herald angels could sing glory to the newborn king okay and yet still what finally does this mean for you and the fact that Jesus is the rightful heir in every way to the throne of David what does that mean who cares so there's a rightful king of Israel so what so what for me well friend I think if you're thinking like that then what's your

30:47 missing is that God's plan from the very beginning and all the prophets and all the promises in the entire law was that the throne of David was not going to just remain the throne of this tiny ancient nation of Israel. God's plan from the very beginning when the rightful person came to sit on it was for that throne of David to be universalized so that the one who reigns from that throne would be king of kings and lord of lords so that he would be the sovereign ruler not just of Israel but of the entire universe.

31:20 And that's exactly what happened. When Jesus showed up and took on the crown of David, sat on the throne of David, so to speak, that throne is exalted above every other power and dominion and authority in the cosmos. It's why Jesus says, all authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me alone. Now, I wonder how that strikes you. I mean, maybe especially if you're not a Christian this morning. I wonder how that strikes you.

31:52 For me to say that the throne of David, with Jesus sitting on it, has been exalted over all the cosmos, over all the human race, and that he reigns over everything. I wonder how it strikes you, because the reality of that comes to you and me, I think, with both demand and comfort. It comes to us both with power and with an invitation. You see that, right? I mean, what I'm telling you right here comes with a demand, Because the fact is, whether you acknowledge it or not, whether you like it or not, Jesus Christ is your king.

32:24 And one day your knee will bow to him. Look, fundamentally, Christianity is not just a religion. It's not just one religion that stands aside other religions in the world and you get to sort of tour them like a bunch of used cars and decide which one of them fits your needs best. That is not what Christianity is. Christianity is a declaration of a reality that God has exalted Jesus Christ above the universe. And your only two choices are to bow your knee to him or die.

32:57 It comes with a demand that you bow your knee to him and give your trust and your faith and your allegiance to him. You know, sometimes Christianity comes, I think, too soft to people. I mean, we know that Christianity is an invitation. We know that Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. The invitation's there. But sometimes it comes all too softly, as if we're just proposing something for your consideration. Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling, pleading for you and for me.

33:29 That may be true in some sense, but in another sense, King Jesus is powerfully demanding that you come to him. This is why Paul will call the faith of the Gentiles the obedience of faith. Because to put your faith in Jesus is not just you putting your seal of approval on him. It's you obeying him as you acknowledge him for who he is. It comes with demand. But the fact that Jesus is exalted now over the cosmos also comes, I think, with a great deal of comfort.

34:00 It comes with a deep breath of relief. And that should be true for you whether you're a Christian or not. just to know that in all of this swirling chaos of a world and a history that we live in, there is someone who rules over all that chaos. It's not out of control. There's nothing that's out of control, but every bit of it is being turned and moved and pushed toward its intended end. Friend, there's great comfort in that. There's great comfort in that.

34:31 And your choices are to stay in the chaos or bow your knee to the king. Don't go another day being tossed and thrown around by the waves of this world. Come to the king and find rest. Jesus is the son of David. Here's the second thing. Jesus is also not just the son of David, but he is the son of Adam. So look down at verse 38. In all these verses, Luke traces Jesus' ancestry through Mary. I think all the way back to Adam, who is, of course, the very first human that God created in the Garden of Eden.

35:05 Now, why does he do that? Matthew doesn't. Matthew stops at Abraham, proves that Jesus is an Israelite, but Luke pushes it on all the way back to Adam. Why does he do that? Well, a couple of things are going on here, I think. For one thing, Luke is just making the point that Jesus really is human. He is one of us in every way. Just like we are sons and daughters of Adam, so Jesus is a full-on son of Adam. He's a human. And that's a really important point to make after everything he's said so far, right?

35:36 He's got to come around and make that point that Jesus is human. I mean, think about it. Through the first two and a half chapters, you've got angels and miracles and the fact that Jesus is unique among all human beings in all of history in being born of a virgin. You've got angels, you've got a dove coming out of heaven at the baptism and a voice split in the sky open and speaking to Jesus from heaven. And all of that stuff could easily lead people to think that Jesus is somehow not actually like us. He's not human.

36:09 Maybe he looks like us, but he's not really us. It turns out through history there have been lots of different people who have said just that very thing. The Docetists, for instance, in the 2nd century said that Jesus only seemed to be. Docetists, right? He seemed to be human, but not really. Then the Arians in the 4th and 5th centuries pushed that forward and said, okay, okay, okay, look. It's not that he didn't seem to be human and all of that. It's just that he wasn't human or God. He was something in between. He was a hybrid of man and God, but neither God nor man, really.

36:45 So Luke's whole point here is to say, no, look, I know, I know from everything that I've told you so far in these two and a half chapters, I know you're going to be tempted to think that he wasn't really human, but I'm telling you that he was. He was a son of Adam, just like you're a son of Adam, just like you're a daughter of Adam. He is like all of us. And that's a critical thing to have nailed down. Precisely because our salvation requires Jesus to stand as our substitute, to stand as our representative. And for him to do that in any meaningful sense at all, he's got to be one of us.

37:21 You couldn't have anybody else do it. You couldn't have an angel who stood up and said, God, I will stand for the humans. God would have said, you're not a human. How can you do that? You couldn't have had a dog or an anteater stand up and say, I will stand for the humans. No, you can't do that. There's got to be a human that stands for us, and Jesus is that. Another reason that he does this, traces it back to Adam, I think, is that he's trying to show that Jesus is not just a Jewish Savior. He's a Savior of the entire human race, which would have been incredibly important to Theophilus, his Greek reader, right?

37:53 This most excellent Theophilus would have been thrilled to see, okay, I'm not just a kid that sort of has my face pressed up against the window of the candy store. This is good news for me, not just for the Jews. Luke wants him to know that. Just like it's good news for Theophilus, it's good news for most of you too, right? I mean, I don't know how many of you have Jewish descent in you or are from Jewish descent. But my guess is for most of us in here today, if it were not that Jesus were the Savior of all mankind, we would be like the kid looking in the candy store with our face pressed up against the window watching the Jews be saved and yet with no hope for ourselves.

38:32 And yet God says, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's not just the son of Abraham and David. He's also the son of Adam, just like you. This is good news for you. There's another layer to it too, though, because in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul actually refers to Jesus as the last Adam. He refers to him as the last Adam. Now, what does Paul mean by that? Well, essentially what he's doing is he's basically invoking the whole story of humanity in a single phrase, the last Adam.

39:05 And what he means is something like this. So when God created Adam in the garden, Adam was meant to be the great representative of humanity. He was meant to be the king, the federal head of humanity that would act in our stead and obey God and lead the entire human race into glory. That was his job. That's what he was supposed to do as our great representative and federal head. But, of course, he failed miserably at everything he tried to do. Instead of obeying God, he rebelled against God. Instead of leading the human race into life, he led us into death and the curse. It was a catastrophe when Adam, King Adam, sinned because it brought darkness and guilt in the reign of death.

39:42 human beings. But of course, the story of the Bible is that God promised that there would be one day another king who would come. Genesis 3.15. You remember that, right? From back a few months ago. You will bruise his heel, he says of this great king. You'll bruise his heel. He's saying it to Satan. You'll bruise this king's heel, but this king, Satan, is going to crush your head. In other words, this new king is going to do what King Adam failed to do. Adam linked up with you in rebellion against God. The new king is going to crush your head and cast you out.

40:15 He's going to do what Adam failed to do. And so what happens is that in the story of the Bible, the great hope of humanity after that promise becomes who is this new king? Who is this guy who's going to be the new Adam who's going to do what Adam failed to do? And you get a succession of potential people to fill this role. Noah's father thinks that it's going to be Noah. Then you've got Joseph, right? Then you've got David. Then you've got Solomon.

40:46 Then you've got all the kings of Israel, one after another. And none of them managed to do it. They all fail. In fact, the same arrows that Satan shot in temptation at Adam, he shot at Noah, he shot at David, at Solomon, at every king of Israel. And the same arrows that fell to Adam also felled every single one of these potential new Adams. until now until now and now Luke is saying that one has finally come who's going to pick up the crown who's going to pick up the fallen sword and who's going to step up to triumph where Adam failed it's not just going to be a repair of what Adam messed up he's creating something this new last Adam is going to create something infinitely better a new humanity look each and every human being on this planet is confronted with a choice each and every human being is confronted with a choice that's going to set the course of your eternity you can be a part of the humanity that comes from adam that is chained and shackled

41:53 to adam and that is wrecked and destined for destruction you can stay there if you want to but the good news of Christianity is that God has acted in Jesus essentially to reboot the human race to create a new humanity that's going to last into eternity and the choice is which of these two great representatives of humanity are you going to be united to which one are you going to embrace that's the thing that's the thing you can't be independent you can't walk away from it and say I don't want to have anything to do with this I don't believe this. It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not. On the day that you were conceived in your mother's womb, you were born into Adam, shackled to the rotting corpse of Adam's humanity and destined for nothing but death and hell. But God in his great wisdom, God in his great mercy and compassion has given you a choice to unclick the lock that unites you to Adam and embrace King Jesus the Resurrected,

42:55 a new king, a new representative, the last Adam, and become part of this new humanity that centers on him. Friend, why in the world would you stay shackled to the wrecked, sinking ship of King Adam the Fallen? When King Jesus the Resurrected stands in front of you, even right now today with his arms wide open, saying, join me and I'll take you to life. Yeah, you can say, I don't believe it. That sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings or something like that, right?

43:27 It just sounds like a crazy story. But no, the reality is that Lord of the Rings sounds like this. Because this is reality. And one day, either in glory or in fire, you will know and acknowledge that it is real. Let that be here and now so that you can be with your king for eternity. Jesus is the son of Adam, finally. Number three, Jesus is son of God.

44:00 So that's where Luke ends this whole thing in 38. Now, if you look at it carefully, look at 38 real carefully. You've got the son of this, the son of that, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God, right? And that's how it ends. So you could ask the question, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The way that's written in the Bible that I'm looking at right here doesn't seem to mean that Jesus was the Son of God. As I read it, it seems to say that Adam was the Son of God, meaning just simply that he had no biological father.

44:30 The person who created him directly was God, and therefore he's the Son of God. That's all Luke had to say about it. But Greg, aren't you stretching this whole thing to say that that phrase, the Son of God, refers to Jesus? Aren't you stretching that just a little bit? Well, it's an excellent thought, but you're wrong. There's an interesting feature of Luke's genealogy here that is completely hidden in your English Bibles, sadly. So as you look over this genealogy, do you see all those phrases through there that say, the son of such and such?

45:04 77, 78 times you get that phrase, the son of, the son of, the son of. That phrase, the son of, isn't actually there. Except once at the very beginning. So when you read it in Greek, it actually sounds like this. Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about 30 years of age, being the son, it was supposed of Joseph, but being the son of Heli, of Matat, of Levi, of Melchi, of Janai, of Joseph, of Matataius, of Am...

45:39 Do you see what's happening there? It's not just saying that Levi is the son of Melchi and Melchi is the son of Janai. No, the phrase son of happens once at the very beginning and controls everything else. Jesus is the son of this guy. He is also the son of this guy, and the son of this guy, and the son of this guy, and the son of this guy, right? Which works because son can be used for grandson or great-great-grandson or whatever. It's a very broad word, but it's rolling all of history up into Jesus and saying he is connected to each one of these people.

46:09 So when Luke gets to the end of it, it just says Jesus is the son dot, dot, dot of God. that's what's going on there and why does Luke bring it to that point why does he bring it down to Jesus was the son of God because he wants your mind to immediately snap back to what the voice said at Jesus's baptism you are my beloved son and he wants your mind to snap back to what the angel said before he was born in chapter one he will be great and he will be called the son of the most high. So you see what Luke is doing with those two phrases there? He is the son of Adam, and he is the son of God. He's telling us who Jesus is. He's fully man, a son of Adam. He's one of us. He's altogether qualified to stand as our representative and substitute, because he's one of us. And he's also fully God, infinite in his excellencies, infinite in his perfections,

47:10 And therefore, again, altogether qualified to stand in our place and exhaust the wrath of God that we deserved. It's the only way for it to work. When you start to think about it, that is the only way for salvation to work. If Jesus Christ is not man, if he only seems to be man, or if he's some Aryan hybrid of God and man, then he can't stand in our place. He can't be our substitute. And if he's not God, then he's not of infinite worth.

47:41 And therefore, he is insufficient to pay the debt of our infinitely evil sin. Now, but friend, as the God-man, as the God-man, as the incarnate son of God, all our sin, everything that we ever committed as sinners can be placed on him. And the infinite wrath of God could be poured out on him until there was nothing left of it. When Jesus died on the cross, the wrath of God was completely exhausted.

48:16 And the canons of God's wrath fell silent because there was no more sin left for it to fire on. The only thing left standing was the king there in his glory. That's who Jesus is. That's what Luke wants you to understand about Jesus. He is the only one who can take your sin on himself, stand in your place, and exhaust the wrath of God that it deserves. So that you yourself don't have to be destroyed by it.

48:50 And Paul said it like this. There is one God, he said, and one mediator between God and man. The man, Christ Jesus. So what do you do with all this? And what do you do with everything that we've been talking about? As technical as it is, as deep down into the story of the Bible as it is, what do you do with it all? Well, I think you do a couple of things. First of all, you've got to recognize where you stand. You are not independent of all of this. You don't stand in judgment over all of this.

49:22 You don't have any right to say, you know what, I don't believe it, I'm just going to walk away. The whole claim and demand of Christianity is that you stand shackled to Adam, whether you like it or not. And you will either die with Adam or you will live with Jesus united to him by faith. So what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Are you going to go down with the ship of fallen humanity? Are you going to just sink into the waves with that rotten old boat as it goes to the bottom of the sea?

49:59 Are you going to come in faith to the Savior, to the resurrected King, to the Son of Adam, and the Son of God? At least for now, it's up to you. Let's pray. Our Lord, we thank you and we honor you for who you are. You are the Son of David, the one who rightfully sits on the throne of Israel that's now been exalted over all the universe. You're the son of Adam, one who became human, the incarnate, eternal son of God.

50:35 So that you could walk in our place, stand in our shoes, and you are the eternal son of God. Who gave yourself for us so that we might live. Our God, we pray that you would help us to take these things deeply to heart and love you and honor you more because of them. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.