Jan. 5, 2023 - Just Informed Talk - Craig James
14:34
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| Grace is Greater segment. | |
| I hope you guys are ready for us to dive deep into the Scripture. | |
| Today, we are studying the Gospel of Luke. | |
| We've done the first major Gospels. | |
| We started in Matthew. | |
| We went to Mark. | |
| Now we're in the Gospel of Luke. | |
| We're in Chapter 3. | |
| We finished Chapter 2 yesterday. | |
| And we're going to actually do all of Chapter 3 today. | |
| This is talking about... | |
| John the Baptist making the way for Jesus as prophesied in Isaiah. | |
| This is Luke's explanation and recount of how this all came to happen. | |
| And if you want to know one thing about the Gospel of Luke is that Luke was a doctor. | |
| He was an individual who wanted to give a very specific and detail-oriented account of all of Jesus' life and what happened before or around the time he was born, before he was born, And after his death and then into his resurrection, he wanted to give us the most detailed account of just what was happening in that time of that day so that we could have a good referencing point. | |
| And this is why we know the Gospels are true. | |
| In my opinion, one of the biggest indicators of it all, one of the biggest proofs of it all is... | |
| The fact that these are all individual historic accounts. | |
| So it's not like we're going back and we're just reading one person saying, yep, this happened. | |
| We're reading individuals at different times putting together their recollections and accounts of Jesus' life and what happened during his life and death and resurrection after his birth. | |
| And this is where we're picking up. | |
| Where we left off was kind of the small part we get of Jesus' life between birth and And his ministry as an adult when he was around 30 years old. | |
| When he was 12 years old, he was lost in the temple complex, but he wasn't lost. | |
| And his parents found him. | |
| And it was a story we went over in yesterday's God's Grace is Greater segment where we went to the latter part of chapter 2. | |
| Now we're picking up from there in chapter 3 with this from Luke talking about John the Baptist making a way for Jesus. | |
| So let's go ahead and read Luke chapter 3. | |
| It says, We're | |
| Verse 12. | |
| Verse 12. | |
| What then should we do? | |
| The crowds were asking him. | |
| He replied to them, The one who has two shirts must share with someone who has none, and the one who has food must do the same. | |
| Tax collectors also came to baptize, and they asked him, Teacher, what should we do? | |
| He told them, Don't collect any more than what you have been authorized. | |
| Some soldiers also questioned him, What should we do? | |
| He said to them, Don't take money from anyone by force or false accusation. | |
| be satisfied with your wages. | |
| Now the people were waiting expectantly, and all of them were debating in their minds whether John might be the Messiah. | |
| John answered them all, I baptize you with water, but one is coming who will be more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. | |
| He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. | |
| His winnowing shovel is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn up with a fire that never goes out. | |
| Then, along with many other exhortations, he proclaimed good news to the people, but Herod the Tetrarch, being rebuked by him about Herodias, his brother's wife, and about all the evil things Herod had done, added this to everything else. | |
| He locked John up in prison. | |
| When all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized. | |
| As he was praying, heaven opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in a physical appearance like a dove, and a voice came from heaven. | |
| You are my beloved Son. | |
| I take delight in you. | |
| And as he began his ministry, Jesus was about 30 years old and was thought to be, and he gives this entire anthology of Jesus' line. | |
| And that's the end of chapter 3. | |
| Now you can read through that anthology. | |
| I'll leave a link below if you want to read through Jesus being the son of Joseph, son of Heli, son of Methot, son of Levi, son of Melchi, son of Jani. | |
| You can go through it all, but let's cover what was... | |
| Really, I believe, the most important parts of all of this. | |
| There is importance to the lineage of Jesus, too, and we can get into that maybe in a different time. | |
| It's more of an eschatological discussion, more of a scholarly discussion if you want to get into all of that. | |
| But let's just start with what we're being told here. | |
| First, we're given this account of where we are at in time. | |
| This is telling us that we're in Tiberius Caesar, who took over the reign of Rome for Augustus Caesar. | |
| And so that gives us a time frame relative to where we're at in history. | |
| Then it talks about Pontius Pilate being the governor of Judea, and Herod being the Tetrarch of Galilee. | |
| Those are the important people we need to know about. | |
| Also Philip Tetrarch, the regent of Eteria. | |
| And it talks about this because it tells us then... | |
| That God's word came to John the son of Zechariah. | |
| Now what have we learned in the beginning of this book of Luke? | |
| Is that Gabriel came to Zechariah And told him he would have a son named John the Baptist. | |
| Now he said, I'm not having a son, essentially. | |
| He didn't say that. | |
| I'm paraphrasing. | |
| But he doubted Gabriel when he came to him and told him. | |
| He said, my wife Elizabeth, she's too old to have a child. | |
| I'm an old man. | |
| We're not having a baby. | |
| Essentially is what he was trying to say. | |
| He said, I don't think that's going to happen. | |
| He had doubt. | |
| And when he doubted the angel Gabriel, what did Gabriel do? | |
| Gabriel took away his ability to speak. | |
| And he wasn't allowed to speak until what the angel Gabriel told him was fulfilled, and that was that he would have a son by his old wife, Elizabeth and that son would be named John. | |
| So they name their son John and Zechariah gets his ability to speak back. | |
| And here we are picking up where John, the son of Zechariah, is in the wilderness, you know, eating honey and locusts, as we learned before. | |
| He went around Jordan, and he preached this baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins because he was fulfilling what was written in Isaiah. | |
| Isaiah said, a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make his path straight. | |
| Every valley will be filled, every mountain and hill will be made low. | |
| The crooked will become straight, the rough way smooth, and everyone will see the salvation of God. | |
| This is saying that Jesus was coming as salvation for all. | |
| That all things would be made straight, and all the crooked would be made straight. | |
| Everything would be made low and smooth. | |
| Essentially, it's a fulfillment of prophecy that John the Baptist would come before Jesus, paving the way, healing people with this baptism of salvation, but with this baptism of repentance, I should say. | |
| Saying, we need to get right because the Lord is on his way. | |
| So then how does he address the crowds that came out? | |
| First he calls them a brood of vipers. | |
| He says, So he's telling them to prepare themselves to be humbled. | |
| Why is he doing that? | |
| Well, because in those days, a lot of those who were in power had convinced not only themselves, but those who were following them, that they didn't need to listen to God anymore. | |
| We've read this in other Gospels, and we've understood this as a general theme of why Jesus came directly to To the Pharisees and the scribes and directly to those who God had chosen because he had to set them straight and remind them that God is not just God for those who have power at the moment. | |
| It's God is God for everyone. | |
| Everyone deserves salvation if they repent and turn their lives over to God and accept Jesus as their Savior. | |
| And that's what John the Baptist is preparing the way for. | |
| He tells them that just because you're a child of Abraham doesn't mean you're saved. | |
| He says God can raise children out of a stone, and they can praise God too. | |
| So he's basically telling them, don't think you're more special than you. | |
| You've convinced yourself that you don't need God at this point. | |
| Because they had convinced themselves that the tradition and all the customs were what mattered and what they needed. | |
| So that's what he's telling them. | |
| But he tells them every tree that doesn't produce good fruit, it will be cut down and thrown into the fire, which he repeats again later. | |
| So then the crowds ask him, what should we do? | |
| He tells them to be generous, to give to those who don't have. | |
| He says, if you have two shirts and somebody doesn't have one, give them one. | |
| Tax collectors say, what do we do? | |
| He tells them, don't collect more than what you've been authorized, meaning don't cheat, don't steal. | |
| Or don't cheat the people that you're collecting from. | |
| Soldiers ask, what should we do? | |
| He says, don't steal. | |
| Don't force people to give you money or by false accusation take what's not yours. | |
| Be satisfied with your wages. | |
| Now the people all thought this meant that John the Baptist was the Messiah, but he says no. | |
| He says, I baptize you with water, but the one who is coming, more powerful than I, That he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. | |
| And that he will clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn. | |
| Meaning he's going to take those who are worthy with him to heaven. | |
| But that those who are unworthy, those who reject him, that they will be cast into the fire like chaff being burned and separated from the wheat. | |
| Along many other exhortations, even this happened where we miss a lot of this story between Herod and John, but it gives us this simple summary that Herod didn't like the fact that John the Baptist was rebuking him for his evil ways and he threw him in prison. | |
| Because Herod had taken his brother's wife, and he had done this whole thing where he had his brother's wife's daughter do a dance for him, and then she was convinced by her mother to ask for John the Baptist's head, and that's where we all got that. | |
| We know that story. | |
| But then finally, it essentially ends with Jesus being baptized, right? | |
| Jesus also comes and is baptized in the water as God. | |
| To become clean. | |
| This baptism of repentance. | |
| Not that he wasn't clean already, but he did it nonetheless because he was born human in the flesh. | |
| So he was reborn again with God. | |
| Now, as he was praying, God opened up the sky and from heaven, like a dove, descending, he says, You are my beloved son. | |
| I take delight in you. | |
| And that's, ladies and gentlemen, where we're going to leave it, where we know that God has ordained Jesus as his son after his baptism with John the Baptist. | |
| So, or after his baptism, I should say. | |
| So, with that, I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up. | |
| We'll say a prayer, and then we'll wrap up the show. | |
| All right. | |
| Lord and Heavenly Father, we give such thanks for all you've done. | |
| Thank you for showing us this amazing story of your son, our Lord, and John the Baptist preparing the way for his magnificent and triumphant arrival. | |
| Lord, we pray that just as John instructed those who asked him, Lord, that we treat others with kindness, that we don't cheat those and we don't steal from others and that we live a life according to the will of your son, our Lord Jesus and you, Lord, and that you'll just continue to our Lord Jesus and you, Lord, and that you'll just continue to show us the way forward as we give thanks in And Lord, for anyone out there who's listening right now, who's wondering, I invite them to give their life to you, Lord. | |
| And I pray that they know that in this prayer and in this moment that you are calling to them. | |
| I don't know what that sounds like to them, Lord, but I know that you can do wonders and that you can change hearts and you can change lives and you can do incredible things that nobody thought were possible. | |
| So if there's anybody out there dealing with In Jesus' name we pray. | |
| Amen. | |
| All right, guys. | |
| Well, I'm going to go ahead and leave it there. | |
| I want to say thank you for watching this episode. | |
| Make sure you like, share, subscribe. | |
| I really enjoy this. | |
| If you guys like these, please share it, all that stuff. | |
| But there's links in the description if you want to help support this channel and keep it going. | |
| That's where I'm going to go ahead and leave it. | |
| I want to say thank you for watching this episode of Just Informed News. | |
| My name is Craig. |
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