Let me pray for us, and then we are going to look at Luke chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3 as we enter in on the biblical theology in the New Testament and how God's unfolding revelation is about Christ, not just in the Old, but in the New. We don't want to think the New Testament is just monolithic in the sense of everything is just given to you at once. as if all the books were written on the same day by the apostles in the same room, and it was just all given at once. It also has a progressive nature to it, and that means the theology of it is progressive, and yet it all centers on Jesus Christ. So we're going to enter in on that today, and let me pray for us. Father we thank you so much for the riches of the glory of your son Jesus Christ We thank you that in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge We thank you that we are complete in him who is the head of all principalities and powers and Everything that is named in this age and in the age to come we thank you Lord Jesus that in you dwell all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and that by your blood you have reconciled us to God. We thank you that you have fulfilled all things and that all the promises of God are yes and amen in you. We pray that you would bless our time tonight, that you would open our minds, that you would send your Holy Spirit to instruct us and to give illumination to the eyes of our hearts, that we might see you and know you. Father, please show us your glory and draw us to your Son and make us satisfied in Him. We pray that you would increase our faith and deepen our repentance and cause us to rest in the finished work of your Son, Jesus Christ. We pray these things in His name. Amen. We are in Luke. As we move into the New Testament, I easily could have taken us through different portions of every book. We will certainly touch on certain books. But what I want to do tonight, as we enter in on the New Testament, I want to read to us Mary's Magnificat in Luke 1, verses 46 to 55. And then Zachariah's song, Zachariah is Mary's brother-in-law. We're going to look at Zachariah's prophecy in Luke 1, 67 to 79. And then we're going to jump over to chapter 3 and look at Jesus' own genealogy at the end of Luke 3. Luke chapter 1, beginning in verse 46. Now, let's start back in 45. Mary's come to Elizabeth. She has told her the news Elizabeth has the news that that she's pregnant with John the Baptist and Mary's brought the news that she's pregnant with Jesus six months apart and Mary tells Elizabeth what happens, and Elizabeth says that when John the Baptist heard the greeting, and that's not just her voice, but heard the news that the Redeemer, the long-awaited Redeemer was finally here, he leapt in the womb, he was filled with the Spirit, and Elizabeth says to Mary, blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations shall call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him. From generation to generation he has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. Now skip over to verse 67. John the Baptist has been born, and now his father, Zechariah, we're told, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. as he spoke by the mouth of the holy prophets from of old that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all those who hate us, to show the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant. the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. to give knowledge of salvation to his people and the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise or the day spring on high, some translations say, shall visit us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace. And then turn over, if you would, to chapter 3, verse 23. Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about 30 years of age, being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, the son of Hali, the son of Matath, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Janai, the son of Joseph. the son of Matathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Nagai, the son of Maath, the son of Matathias, the son of Simeon, the son of Joseph, the son of Jada, the son of Jonah, the son of Rasa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Sheatiel, the son of Neri, the son of Melchi, the son of Adi, the son of Kossam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Ur, the son of Joshua, the son of Eleazar, the son of Joram, the son of Matat, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, the son of Meleah, the son of Menah, the son of Mattheh, the son of Nathan, the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salah, the son of Nashon, the son of Aminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, 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 Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shela, the son of Canaan, the son of Arphaxad, 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 Mahalalel, the son of Canaan, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. Now it's interesting when we come to the New Testament we're met immediately with the four Gospels and one thing that you might be tempted to do is think they were written first and then all the other books as if it's just a chronological way that God formed the scriptures and it makes sense. We've had 400 years of silence between the prophets and the birth of John the Baptist and then Jesus, and 400 years where God has not spoken a word, 400 years where there has not been one single utterance about the Redeemer in any way whatsoever. And it would make sense that If God were to speak a word, if he were to speak now, after the prophets have foretold the coming of the Redeemer, and after the exile and the restoration, but the restoration wasn't a complete restoration, in any sense of the word. God didn't come down on the temple that was built, the second temple. He doesn't come down like he came down in Solomon's temple. And so he's saying something else has to happen, and that something else is the true temple has to come. And the Redeemer has to come. And the whole Old Testament can't go on the way it did unless the Redeemer comes. And it's not about all the types in the shadows. That was all preparatory and pointing forward to him. And so it would make sense that when God speaks after 400 years of not uttering a word, that's longer than America has been in power. 400 years is a long time, humanly speaking, for God not to utter a word. And it would make sense that the next thing he does is gives us the four Gospels. But that's not what he does. He gives us the Redeemer. And then he gives us the apostles. And most scholars are going to say the four gospels are written, well, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels are written probably 70 AD, somewhere in there. Some of the epistles written in 55. Doesn't change anything. It's just not the chronological order in which they're given. But the events that happen are the chronological order that are given. And one of the neat little things that you want to get that you don't get on a prima facie reading of the Gospels, is that the Gospels are giving you the history of Christ, and the Apostles are giving you the interpretation of that history, the inspired theological interpretation. The Gospels are inspired, they are inerrant, at least in the original manuscripts. They are God's word, but they are not didactic theological expositions of who Jesus was and what he did, so much as historical accounts of who he is and what he did. They have theology all through them. It's all there. One of the dangers that I see so many people fall in is they don't know how to read the Gospels because they think the Gospels in a sense are theological expositions of themselves and they're not. And so they take things Jesus said and they don't relate them to who Jesus is and where he's going. So, for instance, they'll take the Sermon on the Mount and they'll take Jesus' very clear teaching out of the Sermon on the Mount and they'll feel like, well, Jesus didn't say, and the only way you can do this is to have your sins forgiven and to have the curse removed and to be justified by my death and resurrection and my perfect life. And the only way that you can obey the law that I gave in the Old Testament is to have been redeemed by me after I've kept it for you and I've pardoned you and I've filled you with my Holy Spirit. He doesn't say that in the Sermon on the Mount. And so people will then make Jesus, and Vos says it so well, functionally a second Moses, giving men the stones of the law rather than the bread of the gospel. Very real problem. I would say the Francis Chans of the world, I don't mind saying this on recordings, the Francis Chans of the world fall into that trap. Very duty heavy, guilt driven, you're not doing enough, you're not trying hard enough. I'm not saying the Francis Chans don't get the gospel. I'm saying it's a very real problem that a lot of people fall into because they read the gospels thinking, if I'm reading this section and Jesus is teaching something, I must just be able to just slam people with that. Now, there were times Jesus slammed people with what he said, and he didn't want it to be softened, usually because they were self-righteous and they needed to feel the weight of their sin. So he would say, if you want to live, love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Well, don't sign me up for that, because I'm not going to live, because I haven't loved God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and I haven't loved my neighbor as myself, so I'm going to hell. I need a savior. That's the point. That's the point. Well, if you just try to love people, you'll go to heaven. That's not the point. And so, the Gospels are not I say this cautiously, self-interpreting. Say that very cautiously. Jesus does predict his death two, maybe three times, explain, he predicts his death lots, explains his death maybe two or three times in the whole of the Gospels. He says in Mark 10, 45, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. So there's one place he explains what his death's gonna do. He says in John 10, The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I give my life for the sheep. And at the Lord's Supper, he says, this cup is the cup of the new covenant in my blood shed for many for the remission of sin. Shed for many in the place of many for the remission of sin. So Jesus explains his death. When we come to the gospel and when we come to the epistles, that's all we get is explanation and theological depth. So you could see my caution about perhaps some of the radical crazy love emphases today. All of that, if you read those books, it's all coming straight out of the Gospels and it's all detached from what the Apostles actually do when they interpret the history for us. That may not make sense to you right now. I hope by the time we get through the New Testament that will. Each of the gospel writers have unique features about them. And if you got a good New Testament introduction, you would find some people saying Matthew was the gospel written to the Jews and Mark was the gospel that is meant to just introduce who Jesus is in a very abbreviated sort of way, just an introductory way. And Luke's is written more to the Greeks and the Gentiles and Johns as Calvin says so well. While the other gospels show us the body of Jesus, the humanity of Jesus, John shows us his soul. And you get lots of ways people try to explain the differences and yet there's this beautiful harmony. They are all mutually informing each other. That in itself let me say that at the outset proves the point I just said a minute ago that not one gospel was written as a sufficient interpreter of itself and as you harmonize all the gospels you actually get a much clearer understanding of what's going on of what the point is, and so we are to try to understand what each gospel is teaching distinctively, and then we are to labor to harmonize it, but we are always to try to understand it in its canonical context with what went before, and then as the apostles give us fuller light and they interpret it for us, people often say, what's a good commentary on this? What's a good commentary on this? Well, the epistles are a good commentary on the gospels. So who's the best commentator? The apostles are the best commentators. Now, yes, we use commentaries. We love commentaries. They are the inspired commentary on the gospel. So we never want to read the gospels. I love this word. atomistically. We never want to, I use it all the time now, we never want to read the Gospels atomistically. We never want to just look at them in a vacuum. Well, Jesus said this. Well, you do realize that every cult on the planet says, well, Jesus said this. Jesus said, I don't know when I'm coming back. He's not God. So just to enforce that to you, you cannot just say, well, Jesus said this, and that means that you have understood it properly. You have to get what goes before and what comes after. And the context of the Gospels is God's covenant promises in the Old Testament. That's why we read Mary's Magnificat, Zachariah's Song, and then we'll talk tonight about the genealogies. The Old Testament is Promise the New Testament's fulfillment. That's the easiest way to get it. Augustine said it so well when he said, the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. One book points to the same Christ, more veiled in the Old Testament, more revealed in the New Testament. So whether we want to adopt Augustine's way of saying the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed, or we want to say Old Testament is promise, New Testament is fulfillment, Jesus is still the centerpiece. And that means the totality of the scriptures are focused on him. In the Old Testament, God embedded those promises Into the covenant dealings he had with Adam Noah Abraham Moses David and when we come to the New Testament what we have is a a a gathering together of those covenantal what theologians will call covenantal administrations of God's covenant of grace and They are fulfilled in the person of Jesus now. It's very interesting and I don't if you're not If you would not classify yourself as a covenant theologian, I say this very respectfully, from Mary's Magnificat and Zacharias song, I would have to say Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a covenant theologian. I would also have to say that Zacharias, the high priest and the uncle of Jesus, was a covenant theologian. Because their songs are looking at the fulfillment of what God has done in sending both the forerunner of the Redeemer, John the Baptist, and Jesus himself. And they have said, you have fulfilled your promise to Abraham, you have fulfilled your promise to David, you have remembered your holy covenant, which you promised. So covenant theology is not a 17th century construct. by some theologians that wanted to try to make sense of everything, it is embedded in that fulfillment period. Now I understand that there are lots of nuances when we say covenant theology that we could get into the details, but on a basic level, on a basic level, they are covenant theologians. Mary, they are waiting for God to fulfill his covenant promises, and they're saying, you've done it. You have fulfilled your promise to Abraham. The oath which you swore to Abraham, that you would send a seed who would bless the nations, and he's here. You've fulfilled it. So great was that moment that John the Baptist, who's in the womb of his mother, leapt with joy over hearing the news. You get something of the greatness of what's happening because of that. When we talk about promise and fulfillment, one of the dangers we could fall into is merely thinking of the Old Testament. We talked about this a little bit last time as, well, the Old Testament had a lot of prophecies and maybe 400 or whatever people count them. A lot of prophecies, I actually think it's probably way more than 400 if you count them. But it's the totality of the Old Testament. It's not just the prophecies. It's all of it. All of it was prefiguring Jesus. The temple, the sacrificial system, the priest, Israel, Adam, all of it was preparing us for the coming of Jesus. And so when we go to the Gospels, we're not just looking for the, as the prophet said. And then the Old Testament prophecy. They're all over. And they, yes, they help us big time. They help us. Massively strengthening our faith. I remember as a young Christian, I'll never forget this, my heart had been opened by the Lord and the Lord had changed my heart and made me see Christ. And I went home to visit my parents. It was Thanksgiving or Christmas and they had one of these shows on History Channel And it was a show about Jesus of Nazareth and and they had Some female theology professor from like Yale or some Ivy League school on there and she was talking about the triumphal entry and How Jesus had rode in on the donkey on the on in the palm branches in it and gone back to Zachariah and she said of course you know the Jews had this prophecy that the king would come and he'd be lowly and riding on a donkey and you know some people actually think Jesus staged that to appear that way and I remember the anger I felt and I went to my mom and I said mom if Jesus staged that he staged every second of his life do you realize he staged his infancy being born of a virgin he staged every Millisecond of every aspect of his life if he staged that the point is everything in the Old Testament was preparing us for Jesus when he comes he is realizing Abraham Kuiper really great quote every step he took in his earthly ministry, the shadows fled away. The Old Testament shadows that were prefiguring him, with every step they faded away and he entered into glorious day when he was nailed to the cross and in the resurrection. And everything, not just the prophecies, all of it was moving to Jesus. We see that, I think, in the genealogies. Now, I read Luke's genealogy to us, Luke 3. You obviously know Matthew's genealogy and Luke's genealogy are different. We just got to see Derek Thomas last week, and my favorite Derek Thomas, Derek is the pastor at First Press Columbia now, where he was with Sinclair Ferguson, and at a Ligonier conference about three or four years ago, he gave a talk on interpreting the Bible. And he said, now some scholars will say, you know, that because Matthew's genealogy and Luke's genealogy are different, there's errors in the Bible. And I'll never forget Derek saying something along the lines of, never assume that the biblical writers were so dumb and stupid that they didn't see what you perceive to be a contradiction but you do. Never perceive that they were so dumb and stupid that they didn't see what you perceive to be a contradiction but you do. Always assume that they're at least as smart as you are. Always assume the biblical writers are at least as smart as you are. It's my favorite Derrick Thomas quote. Never heard somebody put it that way. Always assume that. Matthew knew he was writing his genealogy. Luke knew he was writing his. They were buddies. They hung out together. They knew they wrote different genealogies. And so when we wrestle with those things, we come to a place where we generally would accept the fact that Matthew's probably giving you Joseph's genealogy. the the royal lineage down to Joseph who is the adopted father of Jesus giving Jesus the right to the throne and Luke's because he says as it was supposed the father of Joseph it's speaking of his father-in-law who is Mary's father because in those days the father-in-law was considered the father because the family was so mingled, and Luke's giving you Mary's genealogy. Interesting, when you look at the two genealogies, they are different all the way back until David. And they move from David through Solomon and Matthew and through Nathan in Luke, both of whom were offspring of David and Bathsheba. So Jesus is a full-blooded son of David, though he only has physical descent from Mary. Now, I don't think that's the only point in the differences between the two genealogies. There is theological significance, not just genealogical, hereditary significance. And what I want to say before we talk about this is, As we've already just touched briefly on the songs in Luke 1, and we've seen that the fulfillment is not just in explicit prophecy but in covenantal promise and expectation, so every genre and every part of the Gospels is in some way showing us a different facet of fulfillment. So the genealogies are teaching us about fulfillment. People have a hard time reading the Old Testament because of the genealogies. And yet, when you look, so many of them are expanded versions of Jesus's genealogy. Even in Chronicles, same people. And that means the Old Testament was moving genealogically the seed promise coming from Adam, right? Genesis 3.15, Redeemer's gonna come, see to the woman, he's here. Now, theologically the genealogies are unique. Matthew is writing to a more Jewish audience. We know that because he uses the phrase kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, which was a very Danielic, belonged to the book of Daniel, which was a very Israelite-ish focus to it, and the Jews staked a lot on the terms Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven. Well, the King is here, and so it's natural that Matthew starts with David, son of David, son of Abraham, and then to Jesus. Son of David means he's the King. It means the Davidic covenants fulfilled. David didn't fulfill it. Solomon didn't fulfill it. Josiah didn't fulfill it. Jeconiah didn't fulfill it. None of the sons of David fulfilled it. Jesus fulfills it. The king of the kings. Interesting, if you look at Matthew's genealogy, it's a list of kings, and then he's the king of kings in the covenant line, and he's the king of kings over all the kings of the earth. But Matthew's writing to Jews, and so it's interesting that what he does with Jesus' genealogy is he takes it back to Abraham. Starts by saying, son of David, son of Abraham, and then he goes back all the way to Abraham. And he stops with Abraham because what he wants you to see, and listen very closely, and I want to encourage you to listen to the lecture, Jesus is True Israel, if you haven't yet. He is showing you that Jesus is true Israel. Now, you may be saying, what do you mean by that, true Israel? He was an Israelite, I know that, I get that. He was a Jew, I get that. No, he is THE true Israel. He is He is, I'm going to use the big word I promised I wouldn't use, eschatological Israel. He is the end time Israel. He is the one in whom all the promises find fulfillment. Israel, remember, was created out of Abraham by God's grace, but Israel before it was a nation was a person. Who was it? Who was Israel? Boom. Before it's a nation, it's a person. What's the point of that? Because true Israel is going to be a person. Jacob was a type of the one to come Jesus Christ. So it's not about the nation of Israel. That's the point. Now I understand some of you think there's a future plan for ethnic Israelites. That's okay. You can believe that. I'm not going to try to dissuade you from believing that. That's okay. I will dissuade you from, I will argue with you over Jesus as true Israel. Because if you miss that, you miss the whole point of Jesus's genealogy and the whole point of Matthew's gospel. And so I'll just briefly walk through this. Matthew chapter one, we're told he's the son of Abraham. So Isaac was not the true seed. Jacob was not the true seed, Israel, Jacob. Israel, as a nation, is not the true seed. Jesus is the true seed. He's the Son of Abraham. He's the true Israel. We're Israel in Him by faith. That's what the Apostle Paul will teach in Galatians 6. But, how do we know that? Matthew's genealogy is broken up into three sections from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, from the exile to Christ, which I would remind you is the whole of Israel's history. And it's giving you, what it's saying is that whole of Israel's history has to be fulfilled and it can only be fulfilled by the true Israel who will do what old covenant Israel failed to do. in obeying God, in keeping the covenant, and then in his own exile and restoration at the cross and in the resurrection. He's going to redo Israel's history. The big word is recapitulate. He recapitulates Israel's history. And we see this, Matthew 2, when he's born, Herod wants to kill the babies. Matthew 2, what is it, 15? Chris, can you help me out? out of Israel, Egypt, have I called my son? 13, Matthew 2, 13, that's the linchpin, that's it. Matthew, Jesus goes down into Egypt with his parents, fleeing from Herod, and then God says, come out of Egypt. And Matthew sees in that historical act that Jesus is reliving Israel's history as true Israel, because he quotes Hosea 11.1, out of Egypt, I have called my son, which is about old covenant Egypt, Israel, and he says it's about Jesus. Now, if you want to argue with Matthew, it's okay, you can. You will lose. It will not be a profitable thing for your soul. Matthew tells us, under inspiration of the Spirit, that it was not about old covenant Israel, it was about the true Israel. Everything that happened to them was preparing us for what he would do. Now, it goes down into Egypt, out of Egypt, through the water, just like Israel, right? They go into Egypt, out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, into the wilderness. Jesus goes down into Egypt, out of Egypt, through the waters of baptism, into the wilderness, where he's what? He's tempted by the devil and how does he overcome the devil? with the word from Deuteronomy, who was given to who? Was given to Israel in the wilderness. So Jesus overthrows the temptations of the evil one, temptations that were very similar to Israel's actually, in the wilderness. And he overthrows the evil one in obedience to God. His heavenly father is the covenant, the servant of the Lord. He obeys his father with the scripture that Israel had and was given in the wilderness by which they should have obeyed, but they failed. He then goes up on the mountain, regives the law, comes down from the mountain, recapitulates the kingly ministry and then Matthew's gospel, chapter 23. Woe to the Pharisees, woe to you, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe. Just like the prophets, fulfills the prophetic ministry and then he's exiled at the cross and then he's restored in his resurrection. I did not make this up. No, there are serious theologians who teach this. I did not make it up. The Bible teaches it. G.K. Beale teaches it. There are many, many other theologians who have been teaching it in more recent years, thankfully. Matthew wants you to know that the covenant promises given in the Old Testament were fulfilled in Christ for you in the true Israel, Jesus. That's what the genealogy is all about. What is Luke's genealogy about? It's different. It's very different. Luke's genealogy doesn't go back to Abraham. Where does Luke's genealogy go? Back to Adam. What do y'all think the point of that is? He's the second Adam. He's the last Adam. He's the eschatological Adam. That's what Paul says. Paul actually uses that word, eschaton, in the Greek. He is the eschatological Adam. He is the end time Adam. He is the second federal representative. He is the second one who represents his people. Either you are in Adam or you are in the second Adam. Every man, woman, and child that you meet, anywhere you meet them on planet Earth, anywhere, they are either in Adam by nature or they have been placed in the second Adam by faith, by the grace of God. He is true Israel. He is the second Adam. Paul makes a huge deal about the second Adam. That's not any fancy theological construct. That's the apostle Paul, Romans 5, 1 Corinthians 15. The whole of the Bible rests on your getting that. First Adam, second Adam. It's everything. People don't get that, they don't get Christianity. We only need the second Adam because of the first Adam. What was Jesus doing as we go through the Gospels? What is he doing? Along with his teaching, what is he often doing? What sort of things was Jesus doing? Living life? Healing. He was doing miracles. What kind of miracles? Casting out demons, what else? Raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, forgiving sins. He was healing a man with a withered hand. He was giving the lame their legs. It's important that we talk about, in a sense, if you piece together all the healings, you would see that there were maladies in the whole man. Leprosy, eyes. death, tongue, legs, withered hand. If you put them all together, you would say Adam's sin brought misery to the totality of man and all of the sickness into the world. And what Jesus is doing when he heals them is he's showing that he's the second Adam and that he's come to undo what Adam did and that he has power to do the greater, which is the forgiveness of sins. which is the cause of the maladies, the sin in the heart of man, the depravity. And only the second Adam can do that. And so the focus is on Christ. See, too often we read the Gospels, and I'm guilty of this too, and we read them first and foremost as, what does this say to me about me? And that's not how the biblical writers would have you read the Gospels first and foremost. They would have you read them saying, what does this say about Jesus? What is the temptation account in the wilderness telling me, not first and foremost, how I can overcome temptation, as important as that is, but first and foremost, why is Jesus being tempted? And what is he doing in overcoming that temptation? You know, we sometimes talk about a God-centered versus a man-centered reading of the Bible. That's been very common. John Piper's helped with that over the years. We want to have a Godward approach. When we talk about Christ-centered interpretations, that's the same thing. Not only do we want to have a God-centered approach to all things, that God is ultimately, that God is sovereign, that God is not needing you and doesn't owe you anything. or me anything, but when we read the Bible, we don't want to come to the Bible with a me-centered, okay, what is this saying to me, first and foremost, but what is this saying to me about Jesus and what he did? And so, when we come to When we come to read the Gospels, our Lord Jesus says a lot. I think I've shared this with some of you. I worked at a restaurant when I was a new Christian, and I would witness to my co-workers, and I'll never forget this girl, Catty, who I sort of had a special desire to see her come to know the Lord because she was in the same kind of lifestyle I'd come, I'd been redeemed out of. And I would, every day I'd come in, I'd say, hey, Catty, you know, Jesus said this, or she'd say something. I'd say, hey, Catty, you know, Jesus said this. And one day she said, man, he said a lot, didn't he? Had never thought about Jesus is saying a lot because the Bible says you know he did not open his mouth And he was led as a lamb to the slaughter as a sheep before his shearers asylum He opened not his mouth, and you know the wise men of Proverbs spares his words But then I was like you know Jesus did say a lot But the Jesus who said a lot was always going somewhere The Jesus who said a lot was always going somewhere. And that means everything that the Jesus of the gospel said is always resting on where he's going and what he's going to do. And I understand that you all say, yeah, I get that. I get that. I really believe that we don't get that to the degree that we need to. And so when we come back to what I said at the beginning about not reading the Bible atomistically, not reading, okay, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn't talk about the cross, so I just, I don't need to, he's just saying, don't lust, don't be angry with your brother, and he does end by saying, he who does these things is like a wise man who builds his house on the rock, who hears these sayings of mine and does them. And yet, in the depths of your heart, if you're honest with yourself, you would have to say, I haven't done that. In fact, I've done everything he told me not to do in there. If you're not honest with yourself, then you're like the Pharisees in the Gospels, which is why the Pharisees are in the Gospels. So they are a mirror to people who don't want to admit that they've done everything Jesus told them not to do. And then we're left saying that the Savior on the mount The Sermon on the Mount is pointing to the Savior on the other mount, and it's telling us why he had to die on the cross. J. Gretchen Machen, I think said it best, he says, the Sermon on the Mount, it might have been Voss actually, the Sermon on the Mount, like the rest of the New Testament, leads straight to the foot of the cross. The Sermon on the Mount, like the rest of the New Testament, leads straight to the foot of the cross. That means you ought never read the Sermon on the Mount and say, and read that as extrapolated from the one standing on the Mount and going to another Mount to be crucified for all of our sin and rebellion and failings and to make possible that in Him now by faith union with Him, we would then grow in our obedience and Christlikeness. But that's not even possible until your sins are forgiven, your guilt is taken away, the power of sin is broken, and none of that happens until the Savior goes to the other mouth. Now that's not fanciful exegesis, that's not fanciful biblical interpretation, and the saddest thing is that maybe 90-some percent of pulpits in the world don't hear that. That's sad to me. Let me give you another instance of this. And I'll just give you two more examples. The parable of the lost sons, we'll call it. People call it the prodigal son. I think it's better, the lost sons. In recent years, that really both sons are lost. Jesus is giving that parable to the Pharisees who think that they're righteous. They're the older brother. They think that they, They've done everything. I've served you all these years. And this brother over here, why does he get a party? And Jesus all the while is saving filthy, rebellious sinners. And the Pharisees are not, the elder brother's not getting saved. But younger brothers who have gone out and squandered everything in prodigal living are coming. The end of chapter 14 and into 15 says, many tax collectors and harlots were hearing him, but the Pharisees weren't because they were lovers of money. So both sons are lost. One is lost in external rebellion. One is lost in self-righteousness. One gets repentance and comes home. But I love Sinclair Ferguson has a sermon, has three sermons on the prodigal sons, the lost sons, one's called the distant son number one, the distant son number two, and the waiting father. And in the waiting father, he asks the question, the father comes out, and that's God the father. He comes out, he's watching for the son. He's ready to receive him back. He's so full of grace and mercy. The younger brother comes home and he throws the robe on him, the ring, and he kills the best fatted calf. He throws a party and he says, bring all the friends. We're going to have a party. My son was dead. He's alive again. He was lost. He's found. And Ferguson says, we have to ask the question, how can the father, because this is clearly a picture of God, the father, how can he receive the sign? Because the Bible makes very clear that God the Father is absolutely, perfectly holy and that he cannot receive any unrighteousness to himself. And you may say, well, that's not the point of the parable. It's the point of the Bible. It's the point of the Bible. I actually had people challenge me on that when I taught this in Sunday school a couple years ago. That's not the point of the parable. It's the point of the Bible. God cannot receive sinners to himself apart from the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. And so Ferguson says, the key is there's another son. He's the one telling the story. And he's going to the cross. to make it possible for the father to receive the younger brother back by grace. That would be taking one of Jesus's not ethical teachings but one of his parabolic stories and still putting it in the mouth of the one who is going to the cross to make it possible for younger brothers like me and maybe older or younger brothers like you to be received back to God's favor. Again, putting those words in the mouth of the one heading to the cross. All the words of the Gospels. Now, there are so many other examples of this. I'll just close with one I've been thinking about a lot. The foot washing in the upper room. You know, for centuries, maybe a millennium, many in the church have really literally thought it was about washing people's feet. And so you find churches that do foot washing. We were thinking about having a foot washing. You know, that's fine. We don't live in Palestine. The roads are paved. They're not dirty. And then, you know, others will say, well, you know, washing somebody's car is like washing their feet today, so we'll have a car washing ministry. I'm all for a car washing ministry. I like to get my car washed. It's good to care for people's needs, and we're called to care for people's needs. The point of Jesus washing the disciples' feet was not to wash their feet. The point was to give them a symbol of what he was going to do at the cross. We know that because he comes to Simon Peter, he stoops, he takes the towel off, he humbles himself, he acts out what he did in the divine nature. He who was God became man. He humbled himself, he served us in his death on the cross, and then he resumed and took his place again, and that's exactly what John 13 shows. He goes from exaltation, humiliation, exaltation, and in the humiliation, he washes their feet, and Peter says, you shouldn't wash me, and Peter was right, he shouldn't. Jesus says if I don't wash you you have no part with me. It's not about the foot washing. It's about the soul washing So again, that's just another example If we don't read John 13 in the context of who Jesus is and what he's doing Then we're gonna misinterpret it all of that. I know that's a lot for you. I wanted to get through that. I'd like to pick up on John's gospel next time, because John's gospel is like a whole thing in itself. John's gospel is so rich and full, and there's so much biblical theology. So if I could wait and come back next time to do John's gospel, I wanted to at least pick up on What are the Gospels? Why are they there? How do we read them in a Christ-centered way? It almost sounds funny, doesn't it? To say, we have to learn to read the Gospels in a Christ-centered way, and by that I mean in a Christ-as-Savior-going-to-the-cross way. Lots of people teach the ethical teaching of Jesus, and they think, well, you know, Jesus said this, and we need to be loving people and good people, and that's not the point of the Gospels on the whole. He will make us good people once we're in Him. The point is what he's doing to wash us and cleanse us and redeem us. And that's when we come to the epistles, that's why the apostles don't start any of their letters by saying, be a good person, you know, just love people and love God and love neighbor. And that's all that matters. They don't do that. And that's what the social gospel did. That's what liberals did in the 20th century, was it's really just about loving. Paul says, love is the greatest, and just love people. And love is the greatest, but you can't love people until you're redeemed. And we love him because he first loved us, and we know that he loved us. How? Because he sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins. So you see how it all moves in and out from the cross.