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[0:00] and then read the passage for today. Dear God, thank you for today. Thank you for bringing us all here. We pray, God, that as we read, as your word is read and preached, oh God, that you would just speak to us individually, God.

[0:16] Lord, we know that your word is alive and active, God. We pray that, yeah, we would really see you and know you and that your truth, oh God, would be made alive in our lives today.

[0:29] In Jesus' name. Okay, so I'm going to read from Luke 3, starting from verse, let's say, 21 to 413.

[0:43] 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 dog.

[0:54] And a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased. Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about 30 years of age, being the son of, as was supposed, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Metathat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Janiah, the son of Joseph, the son of Metathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Nagaiah, the son of Math, the son of Metathias, the son of Simeon, the son of Josek, the son of Judah, the son of Joannan, the son of Reza, the son of Zerubbabel, the Rons of Sons, the son of Sheltiel, the son of Mirai, the son of Melchi, the son of Adai, the son of Kosam, the son of El-Madan, the son of Er, the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Mat Corinthians, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of JahХ notice, the son of Eliakim, the son of Meliah, the son of Mena, the son of Matatha, the son of Nathan, the son ofman, the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of bat, the son of Boaz the son of Salah the son of Nashih the son of Aminadab the son of Ajme the son of Arnie the son of Hezron the son of Perez the son of Judah the son of Jacob the son of Isaac the son of Abraham the son of Terah the son of Nahor the son of Saruk the son of Rheul the son of Pellick the son of Eber the son of Shela the son of Canaan the son of Arfaxad the son of Shem the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalel, the son of Canaan, the son of Anos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

[3:00] And Jesus, full of the Spirit, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days, and when they were ended, he was hungry.

[3:15] The devil said to him, If you are the son of God, command these stones to become bread. And Jesus answered him, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone.

[3:27] And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in the moment of time, and said to him, To you I will give all these authority and their glory, for it hath been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours.

[3:46] And Jesus answered him, It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from there, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you to guard you.

[4:10] And on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against the stone. And Jesus answered, It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

[4:27] This is the word of God. Thanks. Imagine meeting someone that's just gleaming with glory and charisma.

[4:52] And surely you think to yourself, This is a VIP. This is an important person. And that person walks right up to you with such gravitas that you feel tempted to bow down in his presence, almost to worship him.

[5:10] And that's what we see in Revelation chapter 22, verses 8 to 9. And after encountering an angel of God and hearing his words and seeing his visions, Apostle John says, When I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me.

[5:25] But he said to me, You must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.

[5:37] This great personage is merely a servant. Who then is the king that this servant ministers to?

[5:49] If this is the manner of the servant, what kind of a person could this king be? If this is the butler, what kind of a person is the master of the house? That's kind of where we find ourselves here in Luke chapter 3, 21.

[6:02] Because in chapter 3, earlier in chapter 3, we met John the Baptist. And we were told about his birth, that he will be great before the Lord. And his birth was attended with such remarkable circumstances that murmurings and rumors about him spread all over the town and the entire region.

[6:17] And people were openly wondering to themselves, What then will this child be? The people were in expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Christ.

[6:34] Luke chapter 3, verses 15 to 16. But 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.

[6:49] He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. So in the ancient Near East, right, the desert climate, people's feet were clad with open-toed sandals, and so it would always become caked with dirt.

[7:04] And so washing the feet, therefore, was a daily necessity, but this was considered such a demeaning task that Jews insisted that even slaves were not, Jewish slaves were not worthy of this task. That you should only have Gentile slaves do this, and Jewish slaves were not allowed to wash people's feet.

[7:19] And yet this great personage, this seeming VIP, the John the Baptist, says, I am not worthy to untie the sandals of this one who is to come.

[7:30] And so that's whom we are about to encounter. This great Jewish prophet, the powerful man of God, whom openly many wondered whether or not it was the Christ, says, no, this master is coming.

[7:42] It is not I. And that's whom we meet in Luke chapter 3, 21 to chapter 4, verse 13. And in this passage, we learn that Jesus is the Son of God who represents and restores humanity to their rightful relationship with God.

[7:59] That's the main point of this passage. And we'll see that in three parts. First, we see the announcement of the Son of God. Second, we see the ancestry of the Son of God. And third, we see the allegiance of the Son of God.

[8:11] In verses 21 to 22, we say that, 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.

[8:27] And a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased. In the parallel passage in Matthew chapter 3 and Mark chapter 1, We also learn that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus after he was baptized.

[8:41] So that's the same. But Luke gives us the additional detail that it was, in fact, after Jesus was baptized, and while he was in the act of praying to God, that the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him.

[8:55] And a voice came from heaven. So God saw it fit to include four gospel accounts in Scripture, because each has its particular emphasis. And this emphasis on prayer is Luke's particular contribution.

[9:09] So in the pivotal moments of Jesus' life and ministry in the Gospel of Luke are all preceded by prayer. So before choosing his 12 disciples, who will go on to become the apostles and the foundation of the church, it says in Luke chapter 6, 12, that all night Jesus continued in prayer to God.

[9:27] Immediately before Peter makes the breakthrough confession that Jesus is the Christ of God, Jesus was praying alone. And just before Jesus is transfigured with dazzling glory of God and joined by Moses and Elijah on the mountain, it says in Luke 9, 29, Jesus was praying.

[9:47] It was after Jesus finished praying in Luke chapter 11, verse 1, that he teaches his disciples how to pray with the motto of the Lord's Prayer. And finally, before his impending arrest, trial, death, and resurrection, it says in Luke chapter 22, 41, that Jesus knelt down and prayed.

[10:06] Why does this happen? Luke is intentionally driving home a point with this, because like the petals that the flower girl drops in preparation for the entrance of the bride, like the light that breaks on the horizon at dawn before the rising of the sun, God has appointed that prayer in the life of the spiritual person to be the forerunner to all of his blessings.

[10:32] We take for granted what was given to us if we receive it without asking, but we cherish it if it's given to us after much seeking. Like parents who are ready to give what is good to their children, but only ways that they would ask, because in the act of asking and giving, there's a deepening of love and trust.

[10:55] Our Heavenly Father stands ready to bestow what we would ask, ready to bestow on us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, awaiting that we would pray.

[11:07] And so this is really a side point here, but we are creatures of time, and so we like to mark days and weeks and years, and often we make resolutions for the new year, when January 1st comes.

[11:22] And so let me remind you that we're also creatures of habit, and so I want to ask you a question. Do you have a habit of daily prayer? Have you set aside regular time and place to pray?

[11:39] Because you have not set a deliberate course to pray, then you have planned not to pray. Not to guilt trip you, but this is, I sincerely wish that we would all take advantage of the privilege that prayer is, seeing this pattern of blessing that follows it in the Gospel of Luke.

[12:01] And in verse 22, it tells us that while Jesus was praying, the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove, and a voice came from heaven.

[12:12] You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased. The word bodily describes the form in which the Spirit descended. It had substance, so it was visible to everybody.

[12:23] And then the phrase, like a dove, describes the manner in which the Spirit descended. So he did not descend as a dove. It says that he descended like a dove. It's describing the manner in which he came down.

[12:35] And there are significant parallels between this account and the account of creation in Genesis 1. First, in Genesis 1, verse 2, it uses bird language like here. It says that the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

[12:50] And in that moment, as the Spirit is hovering like a bird, God speaks creation into this existence. And so something that's similarity, that parallel is suggesting that something of cosmic significance is brewing right now in Jesus' baptism and while he's praying that the Spirit of God is hovering and God the Father speaks.

[13:11] This is a turning point, really, in human history. Because the Jews had reckoned, starting around 435 B.C., after the death of Malachi, Israel's last prophet, that God had ceased speaking.

[13:25] The Jews during this time of Jesus believed that since that time, God had only spoken to them through faint whispers, these echoes. God never spoke to them directly.

[13:36] Because of that, even the so-called prophets or the people who spoke, those words were not considered divinely authoritative like the previous sayings of the prophets. But here, once again, the voice of God is heard directly.

[13:54] Heaven at long last breaks those hundreds of years of silence. And God the Father's announcement, this dramatic speech, concerns Jesus' sonship.

[14:06] He says, You are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased. So here we see a glimpse, an early glimpse, of the triune God, the Trinity. The loving Father, the beloved Son, and then the Holy Spirit who bestows and betokens God's love, who's a token of God's love.

[14:22] So this is an announcement of Jesus' divinity. He's the divine Son. He is the Son of Man, as we saw, but He's also the Son of God. And as such, He stands here as the Son of Man and Son of God who bridges heaven and earth and connects God to man.

[14:37] Where He stands, where Jesus stands, the heavens open. Where He stands, the Father speaks. And where He stands, the Spirit descends. He is the one mediator between God and men.

[14:49] And He's the one that establishes that broken communication line between God and men. He's the one who stands in the gap. He's the Son of God who represents and restores humanity to their rightful relationship with God.

[15:03] And this language of sonship not only communicates His divinity, His divine sonship, but also communicates the fact that Jesus is the Messianic King. It communicates His role.

[15:14] Because in the prophecy of Psalm chapter 2 verses 7 to 8, it said, God said concerning the Messianic King, You are my Son. Today I have begotten you.

[15:25] Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. And also in the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 42.1, God said, Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights, I put my spirit upon him.

[15:43] He will bring forth justice to the nations. You can think about what's happening here this way. So when you're applying for a job somewhere, it's kind of helpful to have an endorsement from the CEO of the company.

[15:59] And when you're, so this is God's endorsement of Jesus' ministry as the Messianic King who begins his ministry here after this. And because Luke writes in his sequel, the Acts of the Apostles in chapter 10, verse 37 to 38, that the early Christians saw this instance, the Jesus' baptism and the God the Father speaking from heaven to affirm his sonship, that this was a significant event that proved the identity of Jesus to the watching eyes.

[16:28] And they describe this event as the time when God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Now, the language of anointing conveys the kingship because in the old days, kings were anointed at their inauguration.

[16:44] So this, in effect, is Jesus' royal inauguration. The king is coming into his kingdom. He's being anointed by the Holy Spirit. And this is not, by that I don't mean that Jesus is becoming the Son of God here.

[16:57] He is the eternal Son of God. He was born the Messianic King as Luke chapter 1 and 2 made clear. But this is when he is formally recognized, legitimized, and announced to the world and presented to the world as the Son of God on earth.

[17:12] That's the announcement of the Son of God. And after the announcement of the Son of God, we see the ancestry of the Son of God in verses 23 to 38.

[17:23] Nowadays, genetic testing websites like 23andMe are getting very popular, right? With many family tree records having been lost. People are curious to find out where they come from because our ancestry reveals something about ourselves, right?

[17:40] DNA tests. Nowadays, are fairly comprehensive. They reveal our congenital health risks, carrier status for genes that we could pass on to our children, as well as, of course, reveals our ethnicity and who our relatives are.

[17:54] And likewise, Luke here, for a similar purpose, includes the ancestry of Jesus. He has to reveal something about him, to tell us who he really is. And verse 23 says that Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about 30 years of age.

[18:11] This is not a throwaway statement. Luke doesn't provide an exact age at which Jesus began his ministry, but instead provides an approximate number and he rounds it to 30.

[18:22] And this is intentional because according to Numbers chapter 4, verse 3, 30 was the age at which priests were allowed to enter into the priesthood. According to Ezekiel chapter 1, verse 1, 30 was the age when Ezekiel, the prophet, was called into his prophetic ministry.

[18:39] And according to Genesis 41, 26, and 2 Samuel chapter 5, verse 4, 30 was also the age at which Joseph and David, respectively, began their reign as rulers, as kings.

[18:51] So Luke is telling us by this, that Jesus began his ministry at about 30 years of age to connect Jesus' inauguration with the three major offices of the Old Testament era, priest, prophet, and king.

[19:06] Jesus is the one who comprehensively encompasses and ultimately fulfills all the priestly, prophetic, and kingly offices among God's people. He's the one who fulfills it all.

[19:18] He's the one whom we have been waiting for. And at 30 years of age, he enters his service. And Jesus was, according to the rest of verse 23, the son, as was supposed, of Joseph.

[19:32] The parenthetical remark, as was supposed, is an acknowledgement of the virgin birth of Jesus. Jesus was legally reckoned the son of Joseph, but he was not actually the biological child of Joseph because he was born of the virgin Mary.

[19:45] And the point was made very sharply earlier in chapter 2, verse 48, 49, when Mary asked Jesus, Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.

[20:00] But then Jesus responded by saying to them, Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house?

[20:11] Jesus explicitly claimed his divine sonship over and above his sonship to Joseph and Mary? And then from here through verse 38, we see this, he's trying to ask his ancestry as the son of God.

[20:27] Now, it's, at this point, I should address this because you might be aware of it already or it will come up as you're reading the scriptures because the gospel of Matthew also provides a genealogy of Jesus, but the two lists are actually quite different.

[20:42] For example, Matthew lists 41 male heads of families while Luke lists 57. From David to Jesus, there are, in fact, only two overlapping names.

[20:56] And the discrepancy begins immediately with Joseph's father because Luke chapter 23, verse 23 says that Joseph is the son of Heli, but Matthew chapter 1, 16 says that Joseph's father was, in fact, a man named Jacob.

[21:15] This sets off two kind of deviations that don't converge again until King David. And in order to understand this discrepancy, we need to address a few things about ancient Jewish genealogies in general.

[21:29] First, the word father can be used narrowly to refer to one's immediate biological father, or it could refer more broadly, as we do in English, to one's ancestor.

[21:40] And likewise, the word son can narrowly refer to one's immediate biological child, but it can also refer more broadly to one's descendant. It's the same in English as in Hebrew and Greek, which is why Matthew can say in chapter 1 that Jesus is the son of David.

[21:55] David is not his immediate father. David is his ancestor. So that's the first point. Second is that genealogies are not always exhaustive. In fact, they are often selective.

[22:07] For example, Matthew explicitly says in Matthew chapter 1, verse 17, so all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ, 14 generations.

[22:27] I don't know if you're following the pattern, but there's obviously an organizational scheme there. He's not just listing all the names. He's intentionally giving 14 names from each major eras of Jewish history, of Israel's history.

[22:41] And I think the organizational scheme comes from Gematria. Gematria is a method by which Jews assigned a numerical value to each Hebrew letter so that someone's name can be added up and given a number value.

[22:57] So according to this method, the name David has the numerical value of 14. Which is likely why Matthew lists three sets of 14s to prove that Jesus is indeed the son of David as Matthew begins his book with in chapter 1, verse 1.

[23:14] The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David. So in other words, there's a scheme. These genealogies don't list all the names. They leave some names out.

[23:24] They're selected. That's the second point. The third point, which is crucial for understanding this, is that Jews practice levirate marriage as stipulated in Deuteronomy 25.

[23:36] This meant that when a man who is married, if he dies without a son to carry on his name, it was his brother's duty to produce a son for him by taking his brother's surviving wife, the widow, as his own wife.

[23:53] Now this was, this seems strange and foreign to us, but this was an important custom in Israel because the Jews' inheritance in God's promised land was directly tied to their ancestry, the tribe that they belonged to, the family that they belonged to.

[24:08] So if they had no son, if the man had no son to his name, it would mean that his family and all of his progeny would be permanently blotted out from the record of the nation of Israel and God's intended promises.

[24:22] So this, so this is why the Levirate marriage was important, but this can obviously, you can figure out, complicate some genealogies because if, if a son of a Levirate marriage would, because son of a Levirate marriage would be considered legally the son of the deceased man, the dead man, but physically he would be the son of his brother.

[24:42] You guys see that? Now why, why are, why is this important? So all these, with all these factors in mind, we can make sense of the discrepancy between Matthew and Luke. Uh, several plausible explanations have been proposed throughout church history.

[24:55] I, the one that I like best that I think is the best explanation for it is that Matthew is providing the royal genealogy. So the line of people who would have been the legal heirs to the Davidic throne.

[25:07] And while Luke is providing the physical genealogy, the line of people from whom Joseph was physically descended. So then even though Jacob was the legal heir of David, uh, because he died without a son, his relative, perhaps a brother or a half-brother, Heli, had a son in his name through Levit marriage to Jacob's widow.

[25:31] That was Joseph. Which is why Matthew and Luke would be both correct in saying that either Jacob was the father of Joseph or Heli was the father of Joseph. Um, this would explain why Matthew's and Luke's genealogies, uh, uh, are identical.

[25:44] They converge and are identical starting David and up. I think it's because Matthew is concerned with preserving the royal genealogy, so after David it becomes all messed up. It would be different from Luke and Luke and Mark, but it's exactly the same from David and onward.

[25:58] Uh, and this would also explain why, if you look at Matthew's genealogy, he includes all the kings from Judah, from David to Jequaniah, but Luke's genealogy contains no king of Judah except King David, right?

[26:12] So I think this is a good explanation of the, the deviation. So, notwithstanding this discrepancy, the point that they're making is the same and it's consistent in Matthew and Luke that regardless of which method you use to trace their line, Jesus' line goes back to King David.

[26:29] The point is that Jesus is the rightful heir to David's throne. And not only to David, from David to Abraham there's perfect agreement as well. So Jesus is not only the son of David, he's also of the seed of Abraham, he's the fulfillment of the promise that God had given to Abraham to the nation of Israel.

[26:48] And Abraham is, so Abraham is as far back as Matthew goes in his genealogy, but from verses 34 to 38, Luke goes back even further. So look at verses 34 to 38 with me.

[27:00] So he, going back to the genealogy provided in Genesis chapter 11 and 5, Luke goes all the way back, it says in verse 38, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

[27:16] By going all the way back to Adam, who was created directly by God and therefore called the son of God, Luke is showing that Jesus, the true son of God, identified with all of humanity.

[27:31] He, like us, is of the seed of Adam. The son of God took on human flesh and became one of us. He is in fact the new and better Adam.

[27:44] God created Adam in his image to rule over the earth as his representative, God's representative. But instead, Adam rebelled against God and sought to rule for himself, sought to do his own will.

[27:57] And because Adam was the fountainhead of humanity, the first human, he represented all of us in God's creative design. So when he said he failed every single one of us so that everyone after him, that's all of us, is born into sin.

[28:14] But Jesus comes as the new and better Adam, the son of God, who represents and restores humanity to their rightful relationship with God. Look at Romans 5, 12 to 29.

[28:25] He puts it this way. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, Adam, and death through sin, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

[28:44] Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

[29:03] if you are a human being, which all of you are, right, then you are born identifying with Adam.

[29:16] You were born identifying with his fall. And as sinners, we all deserve God's judgment. But God sent Jesus as the new Adam.

[29:28] See, imagine failing over and over again for generation after generation after generation. Every man and every woman had failed. Here is God's plan laid up for them and every single one of them had failed and we were without hope and lost.

[29:44] No way of being reconciled and gotten restored to right in relationship with him. But finally comes that one man who can restore us, who can represent us, who can fulfill God's desire and that's Jesus the new Adam and he succeeds where Adam had failed by obeying God the Father perfectly and dying on the cross for sinners.

[30:07] So that all those who renounce themselves, renounce their sins and entrust themselves to Jesus may be forgiven of their sins. If you're here this morning and you have not yet aligned yourself with Jesus, then Adam is still your head and your representative and you will perish as the object of God's righteous wrath.

[30:28] but you can align yourself with Jesus instead today so that he can be your head and representative. Then the penalty of our sins is laid on Jesus which he paid for on the cross and his righteousness and the rewards that follow are laid up to us, counted as ours.

[30:48] That's why 1 Corinthians 15 22 says, For in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. Are you in Adam today or are you in Christ today?

[31:01] In Adam is death but in Christ is life everlasting. So if you are not a Christian yet, then this ancestry of the Son of God is inviting you to choose Christ and be restored to a proper relationship with God.

[31:15] So after telling us about Jesus' ancestry in chapter 4 verses 1 to 13 Luke tells us about the allegiance of the Son of God. As the Son of God, Jesus displays unyielding allegiance to God the Father.

[31:30] He says in verses 1 to 2 of chapter 4, read with me, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil.

[31:44] The devil is a Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Satan and it means accuser or slanderer. It doesn't merely refer to demons or evil spirits but to Satan, the head honcho of them all.

[31:59] But notice the way the sentence is structured. The devil is not the protagonist of this story. Jesus is and the Holy Spirit is. We're told twice that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and he was led by the Holy Spirit into being tempted by the devil.

[32:17] It's the Spirit's fullness and leading that brings Jesus to 40 days to be tempted by the devil. The devil is simply playing foil to Jesus in order to highlight Jesus' faithful allegiance to the Father as the Son of God.

[32:31] This is insightful for us and we can apply this to our lives because being tempted to sin is not the same thing as sinning. If Jesus can be tempted, so can all of us and we will face many temptations in our lives.

[32:44] But in the midst of all of that, this is also comforting because we see that even in our temptations and trials, even in the toughest moments, even when it seems like the devil is calling all the shots in our lives, in fact, the Lord God is in charge.

[33:01] The Spirit of God is leading sovereignly. And so, if you feel discouraged by the trials and temptations that you are facing today in your life and your situation now, you can know from this in Jesus' example that God is in control, that God is the one that's in charge.

[33:19] He is at work in and through all of that. As Charles Spurgeon once said, the refiner is never very far from the mouth of the furnace when his gold is in the fire.

[33:34] The word to tempt can also be translated as to test. And depending on the context, it can mean to tempt someone in order to make them fail and discredit them.

[33:45] Or it can mean to test someone to show their true worth and approve them and accredit them. So, it has both nuances here because while it's the devil that tempts Jesus in order to discredit him, the Spirit of God leads him into this to test him so that he can accredit him, approve him in preparation for the ministry that he's about to begin.

[34:09] And this period of testing lasted 40 days which, like all the other numbers that we've seen so far, is not a throwaway number. It has symbolic significance and is used frequently throughout the Old Testament.

[34:20] But the most important connection to the Old Testament is that Moses fasted for 40 days before receiving the covenant law from God on behalf of God's people.

[34:31] And also, Israel, God's people, wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. So here, Jesus' 40-day journey into the wilderness parallels the journey of Israel for 40 years in the wilderness.

[34:45] And since Jesus uses scripture, citations from Deuteronomy, which tells about Moses' 40 days of fast as well as Israel's journey in the wilderness, Jesus is here being portrayed as the representative, as a new Israel, the people, the God, the Son of God who represents, because Israel is described in Exodus as God's firstborn son.

[35:10] And so here, Jesus is the new firstborn, the new son who represents God's people and succeeds where Israel had failed. Now let's look at the specific aspects of the three temptations.

[35:22] It says at the end of verse 2 that Jesus ate nothing during those days, and when they were ended, he was hungry. This is an extended fast, and remember that while Jesus is fully God, he's also fully man, and naturally he was hungry.

[35:37] And it is at this vulnerable moment that the devil palaces on him, and he speaks for the first time in verse 3. If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.

[35:51] We saw earlier at Jesus' baptism that God the Father said that Jesus is his beloved Son, and then in the genealogy, we saw that Jesus is the Son of Adam, the Son of God.

[36:04] So once the main theme of this entire section is that Jesus is the Son of God, and that theme is running through these temptation accounts as well, because the devil's temptations hinge upon that truth, because it begins, if you are the Son of God, and he repeats that again in verse 9, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.

[36:24] Now, by asking if you are the Son of God, the devil is not questioning Jesus' identity as the Son of God, because the grammatical construction, this is what Greek grammarians call the first class condition, which means it assumes that the condition is true, if you are the Son of God.

[36:41] It's assumed that that is true. He is the Son of God. So it could really better be translated as, since you are the Son of God, since you are the Son of God, do this and this. So the devil is certain that Jesus is the Son of God, and the devil knows that Jesus knows that he is the Son of God.

[36:56] He's not playing, you know, dare game or using reverse psychology to make Jesus sin. He's saying that he's rather trying to get Jesus to misuse his prerogative as the Son of God and act independently of his Father's will.

[37:14] The first temptation is a temptation of appetite. Right? There's nothing wrong with the appetite for bread in and of itself. God designed us to be hungry for food, but Jesus is here tempted to doubt God's provision for him and to provide for himself.

[37:32] It brings into question the way God is leading Jesus into the wilderness for testing. Right? We can see this in the way Jesus answers the devil in verse 4. It is written, man shall not live by bread alone.

[37:46] Right? Jesus is here quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 3 where Moses tells the Israelites, he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know that he might make you know that the man does not live by bread alone.

[38:04] But man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. God humbled the Israelites by letting them experience hunger and then instead of giving them all the food that they will need for their entire journey of wilderness, God gave them just enough manna to last them one day so that every single day they would be forced to depend on God for his daily provision.

[38:26] This was intended to make Israel depend on God and look to him. they were to learn humility and submission but instead of learning to depend on God they learned to rebel against God, to grumble, complain, to unbelief.

[38:46] Jesus is facing the same temptation here. The devil is asking him aren't you the son of God? Aren't you starving? Where is your father?

[38:57] Doesn't he care? Doesn't he provide for you? Take things into your own hands. Here you can provide for yourself better than he can. Turn this stone into bread. This is representative really of all the temptations of any kinds of temptation that we face as well.

[39:13] Temptations of appetite. What are your appetites that have grown in ordinate in your life? That's become unruly. The devil tempts us in similar ways.

[39:25] Aren't you a child of God? Where is your father? Aren't you lonely? lonely? Date that non-Christian girlfriend. Marry that man that's no good for you.

[39:39] Take things into your own hands. Don't wait on God and trust in his provision. Aren't you in need? Don't you want to eat at those nice restaurants?

[39:50] Don't you want to buy those clothes? Don't you want to feel more attractive? Don't you want to be perceived as more successful? Don't you want to lust after that woman and fantasize about her?

[40:02] Don't you want to drink that extra pint of beer that will tip you over the edge? Why are you depriving yourself of all these things? Where is your father?

[40:14] Aren't you a child of God? Why isn't he caring for you? even if you're trying to meet a genuine legitimate need that you really have?

[40:29] Is your posture toward God of humble dependence clinging to him for his provision looking to him as your Lord and as your God and as your King or are you taking things into your own hands?

[40:43] In Matthew 6 25 to 34 Jesus says therefore I tell you do not be anxious about your life what you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body what you will put on is not life more than food and the body more than clothing but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.

[41:07] You seek to satisfy your appetites more than humbly obeying God. Are you seeking and advancing the kingdom of God in your life or are you merely in a serial pursuit of satisfying your appetites?

[41:25] That's the first temptation the temptation of appetite. Yes we need bread for life but life is not for bread. The point the purpose of our life is to do the will of God which is why Jesus says in John 4 34 my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

[41:45] that's my food. That's what's prior. That's what's most important. The second temptation is a temptation to ambition.

[41:58] It says in verses 5 to 7 and the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him to you I will give all the authority and their glory for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will.

[42:14] If you then will worship me it will all be yours. Some people ask at this point whether or not Satan is bluffing here because they don't really think that Satan has this kind of power to offer Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory but I think it's kind of missing the point of the narrative to ask that question because Jesus obviously treats it as a real temptation and this is consistent with the fact that the devil is described in several instances throughout the New Testament as the ruler of this world this doesn't mean of course that the devil is a rival authority to God he says that all this authority and their glory has been delivered to me meaning the devil has subordinate authority to God and has nothing but that which God himself has delivered to him has allowed him and permitted him to have so it's interesting though here that Luke ties all of this world's authority and glory the political institutional powers he ties it to the devil that this world is under the devil's influence until it's wrested from his control by the returning king when he consummates his kingdom on earth that's why it's a mistake for us as

[43:25] Christians to conflate the kingdom of God with any of the kingdoms of this world it doesn't matter how nice or great these earthly kingdoms are we can't ever conflate the two entirely because even though we can influence the kingdoms of this world by varying degrees we could never put our hope and trust entirely on them because that's not the kingdom of God the main thrust that's a side point the main thrust of this temptation is authority and glory in this world because Jesus actually has been promised authority and glory he is destined to rule as the son of God as the messianic king so once again it's not wrong for the son of God to seek these things the problem is in the way in which the son of God claims this authority and glory because God the father has appointed that his son would attain glory through the humiliation of the cross and through his death because

[44:25] God the father has appointed that his son would attain authority through service but this is a temptation to short circuit that divine ordained process aren't you the son of God isn't all this authority and glory supposed to be yours well then take it I offer it to you here all you have to do is renounce your allegiance to God pledge your allegiance to me bow down to me and worship me and Jesus answers the devil by quoting scripture once again in verse 8 it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve this is a quotation from Deuteronomy 6 13 to 14 and recalls Israel's idolatry in the wilderness in Exodus 32 when they make golden calf and worship it as their God in

[45:26] Moses absence when he was receiving the covenant laws actually fasting they recognized that they need divine sponsorship in order to be successful in their conquest of the promised land but since their conquest was not about the glory of God it was not about pursuing God but because it was about their national glory as Israel because it was for them and not for God they quickly when they realized that God's not with him this golden calf this temptation is about ambition selfish ambition leads to idolatry and whether or not we have godly ambition or selfish ambition is revealed by what costs we're willing to pay to fulfill that ambition are you willing to compromise your principles in order to climb the ladder of success yes you want to do great things for God that's great but is that really for

[46:26] God or is that for you yes you want that promotion yes you want that job yes you want to get into that school but is that really for God or is that for you are you willing to neglect your love for God to put your pursuit of God on the back burner so that you can pursue those things if so that's an indicator that you've succumbed to this temptation of ambition Jesus refused to serve himself the Lord only he says I will serve the third and final temptation we see is the temptation of affirmation he says in verses 9 to 11 and he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him if you are the son of God throw yourself down from here for it is written he will command his angels concerning and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against the stone perhaps catching on that

[47:35] Jesus was answering all his temptations satisfactorily from scripture the devil tries to turn scripture against Jesus and quotes from Psalm 91 verses 11 to 12 as the third century Christian pastor and scholar origin once said the devil like heretics is quick to quote scripture the fact that you can quote scripture doesn't necessarily mean that you are saying something that is actually scriptural because people often misquote scripture and manipulate it for their own purposes as my preaching professor in seminary Haddon Robinson recently passed away he used to say the text without its context is a pretext in its original context Psalm 91 spoke about how God will guard and protect us as we walk with him and trust in him right the psalm called for humble submission dependence on God walking with him entrusting yourself to him but the devil is tempting

[48:40] Jesus instead to presume on that and to take things out of God's hands and into his own this is a temptation of affirmation that puts man not God at the center it puts man on the driver's seat aren't you the son of God make God prove his care and protection by jumping off the temple notice that the devil doesn't just take him to a high mountain any high mountain would have done if it were just about jumping off and trusting him but he takes him to the pinnacle of the temple why because that's the house of God here surely God is in this place let's do a little trust fall throw yourself make God prove his care and protection for you but Jesus once again rebuffs Satan with scripture he quotes from Deuteronomy 616 in verse 12 it is said you shall not put the

[49:41] Lord your God to the test Deuteronomy 616 mentions this that you shall not put the Lord your God to the test as you tested him in Massa and about this incident this is when the Israelites doubted God's provision of water they said there's no water to drink in this wilderness it would have been better for us to stay in Egypt why did you bring me out of Egypt and about this incident Exodus 17 7 says that and he called the name of the place Massa in Meribah because of the quarreling of the people the temptation of affirmation is the Lord among us or not does God care about us or not Jesus is being tempted to test the father's approval of him as his son rather than trusting him and Satan trying to get him to create this artificial situation to force God's hand to show his care how often do we do this if you heal me if you heal my child of this disease then

[50:53] I will know that you are there for me and care for me if you do this for me then I will believe if you do this for me then I will know and I will be your loyal servant me me puts man at the center instead of submitting humbly to God and following God as the center and the driving point of our lives Jesus succeeds here where Israel had failed and this should be a consolation for us because how many times have we fallen to all of these temptations the temptations of affirmation of ambition the temptations of our appetite we have fallen again and again and again and again so that we have no hope of being reconciled to God but that's why Jesus came as a representative and it says in verse 13 something very provocative and when the devil had ended every temptation he departed from him until an opportune time

[52:11] Jesus is not confronted directly by Satan the devil between chapter 4 verse 13 here and chapter 22 verse 3 in the gospel of Luke he does confront minor demons and unclean spirits in between but there's no direct confrontation with Satan the devil when does Satan return why is the statement here because the opportune time is when Jesus is taken to the cross because we have failed because we had succumb to the temptations of appetite and of affirmation and ambition because we have failed in these ways someone has to stand for us someone has to pay for our sins someone has to stand in our place to bear the punishment the guilt that we have incurred for ourselves and so that opportune time comes this son of man this son of God who should never be never be subjected to the work of the evil one who should never be subjected to the penalties of sin to him that moment that should not have come comes because he takes our place and dies on the cross in our stead and so that for all those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus

[53:45] Christ we become adopted children of God he takes runaway slaves and adopts them as his own through Jesus Christ he takes rebels and restores them to as heirs of his inheritance that's what God the father does through his son Jesus Christ because Jesus is the son of God who represents and restores humanity to their rightful relationship with God long long long after that voice from heaven saying this is my beloved son have faded and receded into the background in the wilderness of 40 days of fasting and when he's receiving these temptations Jesus must hold fast to his identity as the son of God and that's our calling for us as well when you're tempted in these ways to neglect that when you're tempted to question when the devil asks you aren't you the child of God does God really care is he really with you you must remember the voice of God that says this is my beloved child perhaps you're telling yourself sure if I heard the voice of

[54:52] God speaking from heaven announcing that I'm the child of God well then I too will have unwavering faith like Jesus but we do have that assurance because Romans 8 15 to 16 tells us this we have we do not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba father the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God this is not projected there but continues in verse 17 if children then heirs heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him we have the very spirit of God the same spirit of God who descended like a dove unto Jesus we have the very spirit of God indwelling us and assuring us that we are adopted children of

[55:54]  God so that we can cry out to God the father as Abba father and that we can be assured that we are heirs with Jesus Christ that he is our fellow heir that he is our brother in the kingdom of God that we will be glorified with him because we have that assurance we can stand fast in temptations hold fast to our identity we are children of God take a moment now to just reflect on that reality in what ways has Satan challenged your identity in Christ in what ways have you failed to trust Christ as the son of God who restores you to right relationship with him take a moment and afterward we will respond by praying out loud together as a church you