Sunday – January 28, 2018 – Read the Word on Worship

Sunday – January 28, 2018 Gospel of Luke – “All in the Family” Luke 3:23-38 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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Luke 3:23-24
“Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph….”

Many people these days are turning to the internet for checking the credentials and reviews of any number of services.  Whether it is checking restaurants for pictures of the food they serve, to reading the reviews for a mechanic who will treat you fairly, to finding a financial planner to chart the course of your financial future, people want the assurance they have made the right choice. After all, it makes sense, if your money and future security are at stake, to have some good reasons to trust the person giving you advice.

If it makes sense to check out the credentials of a service provider, it makes even more sense to be sure about the credentials of one to whom you entrust your eternal destiny as your Savior from God’s judgment. While all of the Gospel accounts, and even all the Bible, serve to establish the credibility of Jesus as the promised Messiah and Savior, Luke focuses on three lines of evidence prior to introducing the beginning of Jesus’ ministry: (1) The testimony of John the Baptist and of God the Father and the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ baptism, as we saw last week (3:15-22); (2) the genealogy of Jesus (3:23-38), which we’re considering in this week; and, Jesus’ victory over Satan’s temptations, which we will look at in future weeks (4:1-13).

While Matthew focuses on Jesus being the Messiah and King of Israel by tracing His genealogy back through David to Abraham, Luke has a different purpose. He wants to show that Jesus is the unique Son of Man and Son of God, Savior of all people. So Luke traces Jesus’ genealogy back beyond Abraham to Adam who was directly created by God (“son of God,” 3:38). Not only does this argue for a literal Adam, it links Jesus with all humanity, showing that He is not only the Savior of the Jews, but also the Savior of any son or daughter of Adam who will turn to Him.

There is a reason why Luke waited until this point, between the baptism and temptation of Jesus, to insert this genealogy. By calling Adam the son of God, Luke does not mean for us to see Jesus as the Son of God in the same way. Rather, Luke wants us to see an important contrast. The first Adam, created by God, was supposed to reflect God’s image, but he failed through yielding to Satan’s temptation, plunging the human race into sin and death. But Jesus, the second Adam, the unique Son of God, triumphed over Satan’s temptation (4:1-13). Through His sacrificial death on the cross, He alone offers salvation from the curse of sin and death brought about by the first Adam. Luke’s point is that Jesus is the only qualified Savior of the human race.