Well, let me begin by thanking the pastor and the session for inviting me here. I am grateful for the privilege of coming. I want you to know that your pastor has been very kind to me and exhibited a great deal of grace toward me over the last couple of years that we've known one another. You may know that I lost my wife in April, and Pastor Andrew has been just very kind to me, and I appreciate that very much. But I'm thankful for the pastor and for the session inviting me. I'm thankful for you being here. I know that whenever there's a called worship service, then I know you have that burden, like we all do, that it's time to go to church. and yet I'm thankful for your willingness and your delight in coming and sharing your Friday evening with us. Your pastor basically allowed me to pick the topic, but what he said to me was, he said, it needs to be full of Christ and his work. And I thought to myself, that sounds like great parameters. And so what I did was I decided on four episodes in the life of Christ. We're gonna be looking at, just so you have an idea of what's coming, we're gonna be looking tonight at the baptism of the Lord, And then tomorrow morning, we're gonna be thinking about the death and burial of Christ. On Sunday morning, we're gonna be thinking about the resurrection. And then Sunday evening, we're gonna be thinking about the ascension of the Lord. And so we're gonna be thinking about some big and key moments in the life of the Lord over the next several times together. So why don't we pause just for a minute to pray, and then I wanna say a couple of words about the direction we're going tonight, at least set it up, and then I wanna read the text, which is Luke chapter three, and starting in verse 21. So we're gonna be praying first, and then a couple of comments, then reading the text. So let's pray together. Our gracious God, we thank you and praise you that you are indeed God. and that you've drawn us to yourself with an irresistible love. And we are so thankful for this because your love fills us and gives us warmth and joy and all of the other blessings of the fruit of the Spirit. And Father, we come to you tonight expecting that you will feed us with your word. and asking that you will and praying and expecting this nourishment to cause us to grow. Lord, we are thankful for the time together and for this congregation and for these communion seasons that they have begun to set apart. We ask that you'll bless us together in Jesus' name, amen. Our world is in trouble. The interesting thing is that our world knows it's in trouble. Now, you might not expect me to say that last part, especially when you think about how our world deals with race and sexuality and gender and equality and diversity and all of those sorts of things. You might not expect me to say that our world knows we're in trouble, and yet it does. I want you to think about some of the philosophers of our day and how they talk about the trouble we're in. how they try to convince us that there is no trouble when in fact they know well there is. Lady Gaga says that we are born this way. She's trying to convince us that we are born in certain ways, certain ways that are deviant from what the scripture tells us. Here's an older one, an older philosopher of the day, Bob Marley. And he asks this, interestingly enough, is there a place for the hopeless sinner? And he says, yes, there is. And his answer to that is, let's just all get together and feel all right. The Beatles, the Beatles knew there was a problem and they said, love, love is all you need. John Lennon took it a step further and said, no, no, no, it's not love, it's not getting together and feeling all right, it's imagining that there's a world without religion. That would be the next step, and that would make the problem go away. Those are the world's answers, and the world recognizes the problem. The reason I say that it's surprising To hear the world recognize that there is a problem is because the world often tells us that we're good by nature. And if we're good by nature, then there is no problem. But there obviously is. The Bible acknowledges that there's a problem. There is a problem. And the Bible offers a solution. And the solution is much different than the one the world offers. You see, if I could put it this way, I would put it this way. I would say that if we could summarize it, the problem is that there was a representative named Adam, Adam I, and he failed to earn a reward for his posterity. That's the problem. The solution to that problem is the second Adam. The second Adam has come and he has succeeded in doing what the first Adam failed to do. Now, that's a summary way of saying it. We're gonna get into that a little bit more tonight, but that's really the problem and the solution. One man who is a substitute, in fact, the God-man. I want us to turn to Luke tonight. We'll see that God-man in 321, and I'm gonna have us read from there to chapter four and verse 13. I want you to listen to God's word. This is, I am, you know, one of the joys of being a pastor is I get to remind my people, Lord's day by Lord's day, morning and evening, I get to tell them, I love doing this more than anything else. I love to tell them that this word is God's infallible word. And what we mean by that is it's a true word. And it's true because it comes from an infallible God. And because it comes from the infallible God, it is an inerrant word. That means it doesn't wander. It doesn't wander from the truth. And because of that, it's authoritative and it's binding for our lives. And I want you to give your ear to the reading of God's word tonight. Luke chapter three, verse 21. 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 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, as was supposed, of Joseph. the son of Heli, the son of Mathath, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jani, the son of Joseph, the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Negi, the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Simeon, the son of Joseph, the son of Jodah, the son of Jonah, the son of Ressa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Chossam, the son of Elmodam, the son of Ur, the son of Joshua, the son of Eleazar, the son of Joram, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonan, the son of Eliakim, the son of Malia, the son of Mena, the son of Madatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Selah, the son of Nashon, the son of Aminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arne, 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 Sarug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, 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 Mahaliel, the son of Canaan, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. And 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. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. 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 this authority and their glory for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. 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 here, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus answered him, 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. You know, it's not just our day and our age that's a mess. The first century world was a mess. If you think back, you can probably, on your own, realize some of the mess that the first century world was in. For instance, the Caesars actually believed themselves to be divine. They had a little help in the process, but they believed it. Herod married his brother's sister. You can just imagine one of the beetles singing, all you need is love. But then along comes John the Baptist, and John the Baptist has a different message. His message is repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. But it's not just a message to do better. He's not simply saying, you know what, you messed up and you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do better. That wasn't the message. The message was that one is coming and in that one who is coming, there will be the forgiveness of sins. And by the way, the baptism that I'm baptizing people with is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And that one is the one that we're going to think about tonight as we think about the second Adam. Now, I want us to think about this in terms of some aspects. I have an outline that I want us to think through. I want you to think about baptism of Jesus. I want us to think about that first. And then after that, I want us to think about the old genealogy that we find here in the text. And we're just gonna take a couple of minutes with that. And then I want us to think about the second Adam. I want us to think about the second Adam. So let's walk our way through the outline. First of all, I want us to think about baptism. The baptism of Christ. Now, when you think about this particular text, I want you to think about this particular text from a particular angle. I want you to think about it from the angle of echoes. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, you have to remember that the Bible, though it's a literary source, was written to an oral people. In other words, they would hear the scriptures differently than we would hear them. better attuned to hearing oral patterns, and there are oral patterns in the scriptures. And we don't hear them, those oral patterns, like they heard them. We need to be helped in order to hear them. Let me give you, for instance, just an example of what I'm talking about. If I were to say to you these four words, I want you to answer in your head what I am talking about. If I were to say to you, alter, sacrifice, brother, murder. Those four words, you would probably say, if I had you lift your hands up, you would probably say, well, clearly that's about Cain and Abel. But did you know that in the Sermon on the Mount, chapter five of Matthew's gospel, Jesus uses those exact four terms when he talks about murder? He's talking about murder, but he is drawing down on the capital of oral hearers and assuming, expecting them to remember the first murder. Well, I think we have something like that here in our text. We have something like that in other texts, and I think we have something like that here. So let me ask you the question, when you hear verses 21 and 22, What echoes do you hear? What echoes do you hear? Well, let me talk to you about. general imagery, or we might say general echoes, and then let me talk to you about some of the specific echoes that we find in the text. First of all, let's talk about the general imagery, or the general echoes. In this, I want you to see the structure. I want you to see how Luke is tying us back to the first Adam. In order to do that, I want you to see this as a larger context. I know at this point you're probably going to say to me, I'm not sure I'm with you, pastor. But I want you to just hold judgment for a few minutes. I want you to hold judgment. And entertain me by answering this question to yourself. If I were to say to you, the heavens were opened, a dove descended, and there was a sun, you would say to me, I think I know what you're talking about, but I'm not exactly sure. Let's see if your idea matches with my idea. I want you to think about the general structure. What do we have here? Here, in 21 and 22, the baptism of Jesus. Now, I want you to think about flood imagery. That's why I said to you, I want you to think about heavens opened, a dove descended, and a sun. It's the sun that might get you, but I think after I explain it, you'll understand it. But I think what we're dealing with here in 21 and 22 is flood imagery. Now, if we're dealing with flood imagery there, we are dealing in 23 through the rest of the chapter with genealogy, and that's straightforward and easy. And then, if we look in chapter four, this is reminiscent of the temptation, the temptation of the first Adam. Now, it's interesting to me, if you were to go back to the Old Testament, if you were to go back to the Old Testament and you were to think about the layout of those early chapters, what do you have? What you have is you have temptation, chapter three of Genesis, genealogy, chapters four and five of Genesis, and flood, chapters six through nine. Luke takes and inverts those. He starts with flood imagery and then goes to genealogy and then goes to temptation. And so it's almost as if he's trying to take those early chapters and create a chiasm, an A, B, C, C, B, A pattern, in order to draw the second atom in close proximity to the first atom. That seems to be what he's doing, at least in terms of the structure of the text. Well, let's look now at some specific imagery. I said to you, hold judgment until we got to the specific imagery. Let's take a look at that now. I want us to check that out. First of all, think about the baptism as flood imagery for just a minute. You say to me, I don't know. I want you to think about that for just a minute. What does 1 Peter tell us? First Peter chapter three tells us something very interesting. Now, we're gonna set aside all the complexities about that passage, but I want you to catch this. In verse 20, it talks about how they were brought, the eight in all, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you. So what 1 Peter is doing is he's bringing the floodwaters into the closest proximity with baptismal waters. Now, I can't resist. I've got to simply say this. It's the prepositions that give it away. He's not saying that water saves you. He's saying that we are saved through the resurrection of Christ. Check the prepositions and you'll see that that's the comparison. But what he's doing here is he's bringing the floodwaters into the closest proximity that he can with baptism and so we've got at least one inspired author who is equating or showing us that baptism is flood-like. Something else in the text that's really interesting. It's interesting that it says in our text, Luke chapter three, that all the people were baptized and Jesus was baptized. Now I just find that really interesting that it corresponds to that flood imagery, doesn't it? All the people. all the people except the eight who were saved. were destroyed in the flood. And here we have this, all the people were baptized, including Jesus. Now, why was Jesus baptized? I'm going to talk more about that in just a minute. And it needs to be answered because when we think about it, Jesus was baptized with a baptism of repentance. And the question is, what did Jesus have to repent of? And we would say nothing. So why was he baptized with a baptism of repentance? We'll talk more about that. The second thing I want you to notice in terms of specific imagery is that the heavens were opened and the Spirit descended. Now, this is very reminiscent, especially in the Greek text of the Old Testament, when you look at the Septuagint, this idea of the heavens opened in Genesis 7-11 is very, very similar to what we find here in Luke. And so this idea that the heavens opened in Genesis and the rain fell and the heavens were opened in Luke and the Spirit descended. I want you to think about that. That's the third thing. The Spirit descended like a what? Like a dove. That's obviously flood imagery. The sun is the next one, and that's a little more perplexing, but I think you'll get it once I point it out. You have to go to the genealogy in order to see it, but it's in 528, and it says in 528 of Genesis, it says that Noah, let me go there, Genesis 528. It says that Lamech, when Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah. Now, it's interesting, why call him Noah? Noah means something like rest. Why? Well, listen to what he says. Noah, and called his name Noah, saying, out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief or rest from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. In other words, they were looking for the Messiah. Maybe this son of mine will bring rest from the curse. And what Luke is telling us when the voice of God from heaven says, not that son, this son. Not your son, but my son is the son who will give you rest from the curse and your wearisome labors. That's the idea. Now, that shouldn't surprise us at all, because that's what was prophesied throughout the Old Testament. Oftentimes, we were given the son in terms of servant language. And if you, for instance, were to go to Isaiah 42, one of the things that you would read about is a servant song. But it's from the servant song that we see language picked up and brought into Luke's gospel. For instance, the Spirit was upon him. We see that from Isaiah 61, but we also see it here from Isaiah 42 one. That is, the Spirit was upon the Son of God, this Son. And notice what else it says. It says, this is my chosen Son in whom my soul delights. Notice what it says in Luke 3 22. With him, I am well pleased. This is the Son with whom I am delighted. This is my son, the servant son that you were to expect. And if you go a little further in Isaiah 42 and look at verses five and six, you'll notice that the father gave this son as a covenant, as the substance of the covenant, says the Westminster Confession of Faith. Now, how should we think about Jesus' baptism? Well, I think we should think about Jesus' baptism the way that oftentimes the authors of the New Testament help us to think about it. This is a new creation. A new dawn has begun. This is indeed a wonderful new beginning that God has given to us in his beloved son. And that, I think, is how we ought to view 3.21 and 22. But let's take this a little bit further. Let's look at the old genealogy that we have here in chapter three, starting in verse 23. This is crucial in a couple of ways. First of all, it's very unlike Matthew's genealogy. If you were to go back to Matthew's genealogy and take a look at Luke's genealogy, you would see that they are different. But the thing that stands out most is that Luke's genealogy runs backward. And it takes us right from the son of Adam, the son of God, to Jesus. And the devil points his finger at him and says, if you are the son of God. And so here we have again, Luke bringing the first Adam and the second Adam into the closest proximity. He wants us to see the comparison. Adam was the son of God, and Jesus is the son of God. He wants us to see that, and he wants us to see the comparison, but he also wants us to see the stark contrast, doesn't he? For instance, when you think about that first Adam, you think about a garden. When you think about the second Adam, you think about a wilderness. When you think about that first Adam, you think about a lovely wife. When you think about the second Adam, you see him alone. I mean, think about it. When you think about solus Christus, we don't just mean that the only way of salvation is in Jesus Christ. What we mean is that Christ alone accomplished our salvation. And that's important because think through the final days and the hours of Christ. For instance, when he takes those disciples to Gethsemane, he doesn't even ask them to pray for him. He doesn't say, look, pray for me. I'm worn out. I'm tired. You don't know what's coming. No, he doesn't say any of that. In fact, he prays for them. He tells them, pray for yourself. He doesn't ask them to pray. Why? Because Christ accomplishes salvation alone. He doesn't need us. And then there's that beautiful voice of God, that voice of God saying, this is my beloved son in whom I delight. That's what God said. That's what God said to Adam. But what Jesus heard was, if you are the son of God, That's what he heard. And so there's commonality between the two. We ought to expect that, but there's a contrast between these two, and we ought to expect that. And we see that. Well, I want us to now look at the third point. I want us to think a little bit about the second Adam. Now, before looking, I want us to think about some preliminaries. I want us to think about some preliminaries. First of all, if Christ stood and Adam fell, then here's the question I have for you. Why isn't salvation accomplished at this point? Let me ask it this way. Maybe this would be a better way to ask it. Why don't we wear little desert images around on necklaces instead of crosses? Because that's what we do, right? We always wear the cross around, or at least that's what designates the work of Christ. The death of Christ designates our redemption. But if victory was achieved here, then why not wear like a little desert around on a necklace, right? Why not that on the steeple of churches, that sort of thing? Why isn't salvation accomplished at this moment, at this victory? I'll tell you why it's not. Christ fulfilled all righteousness in the desert. He passed probation. But you see, unlike Adam, Adam wasn't operating out of a debt. Christ is, not his own debt, but our debt. And so salvation, is not accomplished in the wilderness. What needs to happen, Christ already showed His righteousness, His splendor, His glory, His majesty, that He is the Son of God, but now He moves to the cross because He's got to shoulder the debt that was placed on Adam and his people. He's got to be the curse bearer, the burden bearer, And so we could say that the desert was the active obedience of Christ on display, fulfilled, but it's on the cross where we see the passive obedience. And therefore, it's both. It's not a one or the other. It's both if we are to rejoice in Christ. And that's the reason for his baptism. Why did He undergo a baptism of repentance when He put on display His own righteousness? It was because He was showing Himself to be our substitute. From the very beginning, He was saying, I am not going to stop in the wilderness. I'm going to go on to the cross and I am going to carry your burden. That's what He was saying. And brothers and sisters, I want you to know what a delight that is. that Christ would bear our burden and that in his life we live and possess all of the righteous benefits that he earned in the wilderness. The second thing I want you to know is this. I want you to notice the movement. This is really fascinating. When you think about the movement in the wilderness temptation, there is a movement. I want you to think about it. It moves from wilderness to mountain to temple. And if we could think about it, if we could think about it in terms of of themes, we might say it. We might say something like this. We move from curse to worship, from exile, Eden renewed. In other words, that we are we are seeing we are seeing Christ move not just from one temptation to the next, we are, but what we're seeing is what he's accomplishing in that move. Well, those are some preliminary things. I want you to see now the temptations. And you have to understand all of these temptations, all of this temptation stuff comes from the imagery of Israel in the wilderness. And we would expect that because what do we do? protological son, Adam the first. We have the eschatological son, Jesus. What do we make of Israel in the middle? Because they're called the son of God as well. Well, we see them as the typological son, the typological son of God. But here's the interesting thing. The interesting thing is that Adam, by act of obedience, could have earned salvation for himself and his posterity. He failed. Jesus earned salvation and bore the curse for us so that we might have life. But what was Israel supposed to do? I mean, think about it. They could not earn anything by obedience. They could not bear the curse. What were they to do? Well, I'll tell you one thing that they were to do. They were to point ahead to what Christ would do. And we see that very beautifully in the temptation. So let me just walk you through briefly the temptations. The first temptation, if you are the son of God, turn these stones to bread. Yeah, think about it, Israel failed in the eating. All you have to do is think about the manna story. But it's interesting, if you look at this quote from Jesus in the first temptation, it comes from Deuteronomy chapter eight and verse three, and this was quoted to Israel, and they failed. They failed to keep these words, and that's no surprise. It's no surprise because in Galatians and in Romans, the question is asked, why the law? That is, why that Mosaic period? And the answer that's given is that sin might be teased out, that we might be shown the need for the promise. And here we find Israel failing in order so that we in order so that we see the fullness of glory in Jesus Christ, who is indeed the promise. He's the faithful son, not given to idolatry of the belly and so forth, as Israel was. The second temptation was on a high mountain. And this is where Satan invites the son of God to worship him. Again, this is Exodus imagery, isn't it? And all you have to do is think back to Exodus 32, and there we see Moses as he saw Israel, the typological son of God, bowing to idols in the desert. And so failing, failing, showing the need for one to come after them, for one whom they foreshadowed to come and not only be righteous, but to bear the curse. And Jesus responds, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. And he is the fullness of that. And then the third temptation, that's the temple. If you're the son of God, then throw yourself down. This is, I mean, if there's humor, this is where the humor comes out, doesn't it? I mean, if you think about Psalm 91, What is it that Satan doesn't say? What is it that he doesn't quote? He doesn't, I'll tell you what he quotes. He quotes 11 and 12. What is it that he doesn't quote? He doesn't quote 13. 13 is you will tread on the lion and the adder, the snake, the serpent. You will tread on the snake. And you remember in Genesis chapter 3, 15, the gospel account was that he will, that is the serpent, will strike your heel, but he, with his heel, will crush your head. And that's exactly what Psalm 91.13 says, but Satan leaves that out. What he does is he quotes from the previous verses. I want you to know that what we have here, what this picture is of is flawless obedience. This is the obedience of the second Adam. This is, and we're going to see, this is the curse bearing of the second Adam. But we find, interestingly, what the text says is that Satan departed and he would come again at an opportune time. He was waiting for an opportune time. What was that opportune time? That opportune time, according to Luke, was in chapter 23. Now, he doesn't say, oh, hey, by the way, here's the opportune time. But you see it. If you have eyes to see, you see it. What do you see? You see three instances when Christ is hanging on the cross, and notice what we see. We see this in verse 35. If he is the Christ of God, his chosen, there's Isaiah 42. If he is, if he is, or how about verse 36? If you are the king of the Jews and then verse 39. Are you not the Christ? Sounds very much like the devil in Luke chapter four, if you are the son of God, if you are the son of God, if you are the son of God. Here we find those same things. And then we have this, this beautiful criminal hanging beside Jesus. And he makes this profession of faith. He identifies who Jesus is. He says, this man has done nothing wrong. This man is righteous. This man is the righteous one. And what does Jesus say to him? This is beautiful. Jesus says to him, today you will be with me in paradise. And you see, this is the absolutely beautiful thing. Luke draws the first and the second Adam together in the closest proximity in order to show us that it was the second Adam who threw open the gates of paradise that we might enter in. The solutions of the world are not enough. The solutions of the world are, ignore it, Do better. Do without religion. Let's get rid of it. But the problem, the problem is there regardless of what they say the solution is. And the problem is Adam and what he brought upon us. And the solution The solution is, praise God, Jesus Christ. And in him alone, we find the solution to our problem. Praise be to God. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, thank you for this day and for the blessing of life in Christ the Lord. We rejoice in our Savior and ask that you would cause us to rejoice more and more day by day. Father, thank you for the blessings and the benefits that we possess in him. Thank you for his work in destroying the works of the devil and snatching us from the dragon's mouth. Father, though that dragon may roar about and bellow and seek someone to devour, we know that in Christ we are saved. And so, Father, as we come together this evening and we remember who we are, your body, We rejoice and thank you even as we anticipate the coming days of worship and certainly the Lord's Supper. We ask, Lord, that you'll bless us. In Jesus' name, amen.