Sermon: Preparing the Way

Please note: A couple minutes are missing from the beginning of this replay, but jump right in for the majority of the sermon!

Scripture Text: Luke 3:1-21

Quotes for Reflection

N.T. Wright, Simply Good News
Many people today assume that Christianity is one or more of these things – a religion, a moral system, a philosophy. In other words, they assume that Christianity is about advice. But it wasn’t and isn’t. Christianity is, simply, good news. It is the news that something has happened as a result of which the world is a different place.

J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of Luke
Let us work on, and believe that help will come from heaven when it is most needed. In the very hour when a Roman emperor and ignorant priests seemed to have everything at their feet, the Lamb of God was about to come forth from Nazareth and set up the beginnings of His kingdom! What He has done once He can do again. In a moment He can turn His church’s midnight into the blaze of noonday.

Michael Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement
Luke devotes sixteen verses to John the Baptist and his followers beside the Jordan, yet only two for the unexplainable baptism of Jesus. It is unexplainable because One who has never and would never sin submits to a baptism that is a sign of repentance. He is not repenting; he is identifying. It is the first step toward an eventual death on the cross. Here, with John, he submits to a baptism of repentance for sins he never committed. On Golgotha he will die for sins he never committed so that he can forgive each and every sin.

Application Questions

1. How does Luke 3:1-2 situate us in the world of John and Jesus and how does this give us hope for our own time?

2. How is baptism a form of imperial rebellion?

3. Follow the through line of Luke’s point in chapter three. Where do you need to repent of your own “small-scale injustices” so that your life is aligned the coming of God’s kingdom?