The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

Sermon: Fatal Familiarity (Luke 4:14-30)

Fatal FamiliaritySunday, March 22nd, 2026Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 4:14–30
Prayer
O Father we thank You for the meekness of Your Son, who although rejected by his own countrymen, and cast out of his own city, passed through their midst unscathed, all so that in due time, he might lay down his life for us, dying for our sins, rising for our justification, that we may ever share in Your joy and blessedness. Grant us to hear Your voice now anew, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
The title of my sermon this morning is Fatal Familiarity. Fatal Familiarity. It is dangerous, even fatal, to know about Jesus without loving Jesus. It is dangerous to be familiar with the life and teaching of Jesus, his cross and his resurrection, but then to go on living just like you were living before.
Here in our text, Luke shows us how Jesus was received (or rather rejected) by the people who were most familiar with him, people who had watched Jesus grow up, people who knew Jesus’ as a boy, as a teenager, as a young carpenter in his 20’s. The people of Nazareth had more information about Jesus than anyone else, they were most familiar with him, and yet that familiarity did not help them.
Think about this scene. In just one sermon from their own hometown prophet, the people are moved from amazement, to indignation, to attempted murder. Truth and love incarnate is standing there in front of them, proclaiming God’s Word, and their response becomes, “let’s kill him.”
Now that may seem like an extreme response, but are we not also guilty of similar sins, of similar violence in our hearts against the will of God for us? Are we not also guilty of casting out Christ from the city of our soul by a stony heart, by how we treat one another, by our enmity and greed and lies, by how we make ourselves judges over the law rather than faithful servants under God’s authority?
The great preacher J.C. Ryle, said of the church in England in the 1800’s, “It is vain to conceal from ourselves there are thousands of persons in Christian churches, in little better state of mind than our Lord’s hearers at Nazareth. There are thousands who listen regularly to the preaching of the Gospel, and admire it while they listen. They do not dispute the truth of what they hear. They even feel a kind of intellectual pleasure in hearing a good and powerful sermon. But their religion never goes beyond this point. Their sermon-hearing does not prevent them living a life of thoughtlessness, worldliness, and sin. [So then], let us often examine ourselves on this important point. Let us see what practical effect is produced on our hearts and lives by the preaching we profess to like. Does it lead us to true repentance towards God, and lively faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ? Does it excite us to weekly efforts to cease from sin, and to resist the devil? These are the fruits which sermons ought to produce, if they are really doing us good. Without such fruit, a mere barren admiration is utterly worthless. It is no proof of grace. It will save no soul.”
So how do you hear the Word of God preached? What change has all your church attendance and worship bought about?Do you listen and obey like Jesus is the one talking directly to you? Or do you brush Him off and esteem Him lightly? Do you think to yourself that the sermon must be for my neighbor, to help them stop sinning, to help my wife or my husband get it together? Or do you receive every sermon as if it is God speaking directly to you?
Perhaps you wonder sometimes when I get to a specific point of application, “Was pastor thinking of me when he said that?” Maybe. But does it matter? A better question to ask yourself is, “Was God thinking of me when God said that?” And the answer will usually be, “Yes.” The whole Bible is for the whole people of God and there is application for all of us on every page. All of us can stand to learn something, even if we are not the immediate class or group of people being spoken to. What does God tell us in 2 Timothy 3:16-17?
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
The wise man listens and learns from everything he hears even if he is not the one being directly addressed, whereas the fool thinks nothing is directed at him, and he can hardly be taught by anything but the rod.
And so lest we sit in judgment on this murderous crowd at the church in Nazareth, first we must sit in judgment upon ourselves and examine how we hear the Word of God, and what we do with it Monday-Saturday. Is preaching having the effect in your soul that God commands? Or does the devil like the birds snatch up the seed as soon as I say to you, “Go in peace.”
Familiarity with Jesus without love for Jesus is fatal, eternally fatal. And so let us hear this cautionary tale from Luke, lest we commit the same sins as Jesus’ own countrymen.
Outline of the Text
Now we see in our text that Luke highlights three aspects of Jesus’ public ministry.
In verses 14-22, we have The Centrality of Preaching.
In verses 23-27 we have The Boldness of Jesus’ Preaching.
And in verses 28-30,The Demonstration of Jesus’ Power.
The centrality of preaching, the boldness of preaching, and the demonstration of divine power.
So starting in verse 14, notice how central preaching of the Word is to Jesus’ mission.
Verses 14-15
14And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.
15And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.
Here Luke summarizes Jesus’ ministry around the Sea of Galilee. After his combat with the devil in the wilderness, the next thing Jesus does is teach in the synagogues, being glorified of all. Jesus is quickly gaining in popularity, word is getting around, and his star is rising.
Now what exactly is a synagogue? The synagogues were the places where the local community gathered to worship, to hear the Word of God, and to receive instruction. They are not unlike our local churches today. And this is where Jesus goes every sabbath. We are told in verse 16…
Verse 16
16And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
Here we see that Jesus was not only a attender but a participant in the local synagogue service. This was his home church for almost 30 years, and he was likely invited by the ruler of the synagogue to read and on this occasion to preach to them.
Elsewhere in Acts we see that this is how the gospel initially went forth, to the Jew first by preaching in the synagogues, and then to others in the public square or private homes.
It says in Acts 13:42, after Paul’s sermon in Antioch, And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.
And in Acts 19:8 it says, And Paul went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.
And so Jesus is modeling here how the apostles will later evangelize. He stands up and reads the text, and then he preaches how it is fulfilled in Him. This is what we find in verses 17-21. Here he reads the text for his sermon.
Verses 17-21
17And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias (Isaiah). And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
18The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
20And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
The passage that Jesus reads to them is a composite of Isaiah 61:1-2 and Isaiah 58:6. And if you have ever read Isaiah, you know that the first 39 chapters are pretty grim and very confusing. There is a lot of sin and judgment and punishment for idolatry.
Chapters 40-55 are when the book takes a turn and begins to extol the glory of God despite the exile to come. Isaiah 40 begins with that famous line, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
And then in chapters 56-66, Isaiah prophesies a glorious future that God has in store for those who love Him. He foretells a time of blessing, and prosperity after they return from exile and return to God. God will come and vindicate His name, He usher in a new heavens and new earth, He will punish the wicked, reward the righteous, He will set to rights the many things that are wrong. This is what Isaiah prophesies 700 years before the birth of Christ.
And so when Jesus reads from that last section of Isaiah, chapters 61 and 58, he is saying that the future glory, that eschatological age that Isaiah spoke of is fulfilled in Him.All the hopes of Israel, all their hopes for salvation, redemption, deliverance, healing, freedom, are come to pass in this Jesus of Nazareth who they are familiar with, and now standing in their synagogue.
This message is a message of good news and great joy. However, it requires them to believe that Jesus is indeed how those promises are fulfilled. It requires them to believe that Jesus is The anointed one, full of the spirit, full of grace and truth, The Prophet, The Priest, The King.
Notice also how Isaiah 61 describes his ministry. What is Jesus anointed to do?
He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;
to heal the brokenhearted (which is done by preaching the truth that consoles)
to preach deliverance to the captives, to preach recovering of sight to the blind,
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit to be a Preacher in the first instance. And all his miracles and healings and casting out of demons are ordered towards confirming the Word preached.
This is the main purpose of signs and wonders in the Bible. They are given to confirm the Word that God has spoken. And if you think about it, what is more miraculous? A person’s soul being saved for eternity, or a person’s body being healed temporarily until it dies. A person’s eyes being opened to see physical things that are passing away, or the eyes of the heart being enlightened to see God and embrace Him.
So the primary work of Jesus is preaching. To use the words of His mouth to reshape, to reform and to refashion us into images of God. This is what the gospel call is: an invitation to become a new creation. Repent and believe because the kingdom of God has arrived in Christ. And as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
Well, how do the people of Nazareth respond? Luke tells us in verse 22 that at this point they are amazed.
Verse 22
22And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son?
Wonderment, or amazement (marveling) happens when we see an effect without seeing its cause. We see or hear or notice something, and then our mind starts to wonder: What is this? How can this be? How can he say that? What is the explanation for what I am perceiving?
Wonder is where inquiry begins. But it is the kind of questions we then ask that reveals what kind of person we are. Our questions reveal our character. Our words reveal our heart. And for the people of Nazareth, their question reveals that their hearts are far from God, even though physically he is standing there in front of them.
In Acts 17:10-11, Luke gives us a good illustration of how different people receive the word differently. He writes, And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
So compare the noble-minded Bereans with the people of Nazareth. The Bereans received the word preached with readiness of mind, and so their questions are: Does the Bible teach this? Is this consistent with what God has said elsewhere? And then they search the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul and Silas are teaching is true. This is the mark of noble mind, to trust God’s authority and seek out the truth from Him.
Whereas what do the people of Nazareth ask? “Is this Joseph’s son?” Notice, they pass over the content of what Jesus is preaching, and start questioning his family origin. This is the mark of an evil mind.
A noble mind delights in truth wherever it may be found, whereas the carnal mind, Paul says in Romans 8:7, is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
So rather than studying the law of God or Isaiah more closely, or asking Jesus to further explain these glorious truths, they decide to question him on account of his heritage.
When people cannot refute the content of what Jesus preaches, they resort to personal attacks, they try to discredit him by making up stories, spreading lies about him, this is the habit of the carnal mind, and if they did this to Jesus, they will do it to those who preach Jesus. The carnal mind cannot hear spiritual things, and the book of Acts and church history bears this out.
So preaching is central to Jesus’ ministry, and yet despite living a perfect life for 30 years among the people of Nazareth, their hearts are hardened to hearing the truth from His mouth. Sometimes it does not matter how loving, honest, and blameless you live, evil people will still question you, look for ways to discredit you, and despise you.
This brings us to verses 23-27 where Jesus boldly confronts their unbelief.
Verses 23-27
23And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
24And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.
25But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias (Elijah), when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;
26But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.
27And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus (Elisha) the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
Here Jesus reads their minds and tells them their thoughts. If you were sitting in that synagogue hearing him preach, you would feel naked and exposed, this man sees into your soul.
However, when people are exposed for what they actually are by the word of God (sinners), they either confess and come clean and seek God’s forgiveness, OR, they get angry, they deny it, they start to rationalize and explain to themselves why they are actually innocent, and it’s their fault, and who is this guy to judge me anyways. How dare he! Is he God or something?
In this case, yes. God is speaking directly to them, reading their evil thoughts, and putting them under conviction. And this is an act of love; Jesus is loving them by rebuking them and giving them the opportunity to repent.
And he does this is by giving them two examples from their own inspired history, their own scrolls that they claimed to regard as authoritative.
Those two examples are that of Elijah and Elisha, and you can find these stories in 1 Kings and 2 Kings.
And what Jesus is doing by selecting these two examples, is helping them recognize who they are in this story. They are not the godly seed of Abraham showing hospitality. They are not the righteous remnant keeping the faith. They are not among the 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal in Elijah’s day. Who are they? They are Ahab and Jezebel hunting down Elijah. They are apostate idolaters who refuse to be healed. They have murder in their heart because they do not actually love God. They are so sick with sin, that they don’t even know how sick they are.
Think back to what Jesus just read them from Isaiah 61. If Jesus is preaching the gospel to them, then that means they are spiritually poor. If Jesus is preaching healing to them, then they are desperately sick. If Jesus is preaching liberty to them, then they are the ones enslaved. If Jesus is preaching the acceptable year of the Lord to them, then the day of vengeance draws nigh, and they need to repent before it’s too late.
The gospel is only good news to people who first accept the bad news. If you refuse to believe the diagnosis that you were born in sin, and that your sins deserve eternal punishment, and there is no remedy except to cast yourself upon the mercy of Jesus Christ, then there is no salvation for you. You must accept the diagnosis in order to receive the healing.
This is the fatal danger of a faithless loveless familiarity with Jesus. You can deceive yourself into thinking you don’t need him as much as you actually do. And this is all of us to some degree. We are all tempted to trust in the Lord with some of our heart, and to lean too much on our own understanding. We are all tempted to be selective in allowing God to direct some of our paths, but not all of them. We say to God, “you can have this part of my life, but I’m keeping this part to myself. You can have my Sundays for a couple hours, but not much more. You definitely can’t have my bank account, or my sex life, or how I parent, or what I say to my friends in that group chat.” We are all tempted to not give Jesus full access, because we are afraid of what it might cost us.
Well Jesus has come to demand everything. But it’s not because He doesn’t love you, it’s precisely because He loves that He says forsake all and follow me. Because your whole life needs transformation. Everywhere that sin has touched, grace must go as well. Everything that sin has broken, God wants to repair. But you have to be willing to surrender completely to Him.
The people of Nazareth had that opportunity, but chose not to use it.
And this leads us our third and final section, where Jesus demonstrates His divine power.
Since they will not hear his preaching, since they will not repent at His bold application to them, He chooses to do one act of miraculous power, which is also an act of mercy. He prevents them from following through on their murderous intent.
Verses 28-30
28And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
29And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
30But he passing through the midst of them went his way.
Recall that earlier in this chapter Satan attempted to get Jesus to cast himself down from the Temple, and here now his own countrymen are seeking to do the devil’s will by force. They are like Cain, Jesus is like Abel. They are like Ahab and Jezebel, Jesus is like Elijah.
So Jesus manifests His divine power by passing through their midst. And he goes his way, leaving them to ponder what He just prevented them from doing, murdering God.
Think of how many evil desires God has prevented you from doing. How many times has God mercifully kept you from following through on your sinful intentions?
So behold how merciful Jesus is, even amongst people who want to kill him. Behold how patient God is, to not immediately destroy us, but to give us time to repent.
Of course, the bigger purpose in Jesus avoiding death at this early stage, is because Jesus wants to die in a specific way, in a specific place, to make known to all the world, the great love God has for sinners.
Jesus still has more preaching to do. Jesus still has disciples to call and train, people to heal and feed, dead people to raise, demons to cast out, spiritual powers to bind, more miracles to work on His way to Jerusalem. And until that work of the Father is completed, no one can take Jesus’ life from him. For as he says in John 10:18, No one takes my life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
So do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Do you love this Jesus, and desire to become familiar with Him, not like the people of Nazareth, but as a most intimate friend? Because this is the friendship Jesus offers to all who will accept the diagnosis and accept the treatment. Who will acknowledge their sins and how they deserve eternal punishment, and who trust in Jesus to give them eternal life.
This is the gospel call, the invitation to a new creation, may God move you to accept that invitation, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: How To Overcome Temptation (Luke 4:1-13)

How To Overcome TemptationSunday, March 8th, 2026Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 4:1–13
Prayer
O Father Your Word tells us that if we resist the devil, he will flee from us. And  so we ask now that You would teach us from the life and example of Your Son, how we may become more than conquerors through You who love us. Fortify our faith, our hope, and our love, by the power of the Holy Spirit, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. 
Introduction
How would you tell the complete story of your life? Your birth, your youth, your maturation, your death? If you had the opportunity and ability to write your autobiography, what metaphors would you use to describe your life story? What genre would the movie version of your life fall into? Tragedy? Comedy? Adventure? Romance? Some mix of all the above?
Well in the Bible, God gives us many different metaphors to describe the history of the world, and the story arc of individual people and families.
Perhaps the most common metaphor the Bible uses is the metaphor of life as a Journey, as a long walk from one place to another. From the garden to the wilderness, and back again. From Egypt to the wilderness to the promised land.
We see this in the book of Proverbs that there is a way/path of wisdom, and the fear of the Lord that leads to life, and then there is the way/path of folly, which leads to death.
Jesus uses this Journeying/Walking metaphor in his Sermon on the Mount when he says, Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it (Matthew 7:13-14).So according to God’s Word, you are on a journey in some direction. You have a choice between good and evil, right and wrong, the easy way to death, or the difficult way to life. Life is a journey, a coming of age story, towards either heaven or hell. Do you believe this?
Now another metaphor the Bible gives us, is the metaphor of life as a Battle. Life as Warfare. Life is a competition, a showdown, a duel to the death between sin and righteousness, between good and evil. And under this metaphor, every Christian is a kind of soldier in the Lord’s army. Yes, there are people who switch sides, there are people who betray the cause, there are deserters, there are cowards who shrink back in fear. But the Christian life is a warfare, against the evil inside of us, and the evil outside of us.
Paul in 2 Timothy 2:3, Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
In Ephesians 6 Paul tells us to, Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
In Colossians 3:4 he says, Put to death your [own] members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. These must die!
What is the life of a Christian? It is a journey, it is a voyage, it is a competition, it is a coming-of-age story, it is the romance of heaven and earth, and it is a war to the death to win your soul.
Do you think about your own life in these terms? In Biblical terms? Do you see yourself the way God wants you to see yourself? Where there are real enemies who hate you and want you dead, the world, the flesh, and the devil, and so you must put on the armor of God every single day until God gives you permanent victory and peace.
Well in our text this morning, we see that the life of Jesus, was a life of warfare. It was a battle of wits and wills for the salvation of the world. Jesus and everyone who wants to follow Jesus is like a warrior signing up to enter the Colosseum. This life is a gladiator match. Your opponents are the devil, and your own sinful flesh, and heaven is the great cloud of witnesses cheering in the stands.
The great puritan John Owen once said, “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” And that really summarizes what is at stake every day that you wake up and get out of bed. You are entering the Colosseum again. You must put on your armor again. You must pick up your Bible and read it again. You must get on your knees and pray again. You must forgive your debtors again. You must seek forgiveness again.
And this is because, the devil is an experienced tempter, your flesh is weak, and Satan loves to exert all his force on the weakest part of your soul. And so how can you withstand such temptations? How can you fortify your heart and mind against the many schemes of the devil?
This Jesus shows us how to do in his own showdown with Satan.
And so this morning I want us to walk through this text to answer one big question, and that is: How do you overcome temptation? How do you win in this battle for your soul? Let us see how the Lord Jesus teaches us.
Outline of the Text
Our text divides into two basic sections.
In verses 1-2 we have The Occasion of Temptation.
In verses 3-13 we have Jesus Resisting Temptation.
The Occasion, and the Resistance.
Verses 1-2 – What was the occasion for Jesus being tempted?
1And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
2Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
First recall that Jesus has just been baptized by John the Baptist. Heaven opened, a dove descended, and the Father announced, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased (Luke 3:22).
And then we see that Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Jesus chooses to go to the place of testing. Why does he do this?
Jesus is reenacting the history of Israel. Israel was chosen by God to be His priestly nation. God says to Moses in Exodus 4:22-23,Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn.”
And then because Pharaoh refused to comply, hardened his heart, and would not let them go, God fulfilled His Word.Pharoah and all of those without the Passover lamb, suffered the loss of their firstborn son.
So just as Israel was led out of Egypt and baptized in the Red Sea, so also Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river. And just as Israel was tempted for 40 years in the wilderness, Jesus is tempted for 40 days.
Recall that the journey from the wilderness to the promised land was only an 11-day journey. But because they complained, rebelled, and broke God’s covenant, gave in to temptation, that 11-day journey turned into a 40-year punishment.
As the saying goes, “You can take Israel out of Egypt in a day, but you need 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel.” This was true for them. And it is often too true for us as well. God redeems us from this sinful world in a moment of Divine grace, but the rest of our lives is then God continuing to get that sinful world out of our hearts.
So Jesus goes into the wilderness to succeed where Israel failed. Jesus is the natural firstborn Son of God, He is the new Israel, and He has come to re-write all our failures by His own perfect obedience. Jesus goes to be tempted in the wilderness as an act of divine grace for you and me.
A second reason Jesus goes into the wilderness is to teach us that after our baptism, tests will come. We thought becoming a Christian would make our lives better and easier, and in many ways it does. It says in Proverbs 4:18-19, The path of the just is like the shining sun, That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is like darkness; They do not know what makes them stumble.
But there is this important caveat: Now that you are on the side of the angels, a child of God, Satan hates you far more than he hated you before. The more full of the Holy Spirit you are, the more Satan would love to take you down.
We see in this in the Old Testament with the story of Job. Who does Satan attack with every weapon he’s got? The most righteous man on earth. And then after Job suffers the loss of his children and his possessions, and still blesses God, God says to Satan in Job 2:3, Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.
So learn this lesson well: Satan hates you when you are sinning, but he hates you even more when you are not. Satan hates those he rules over, but he hates those he does not rule over even more. This was true of Job, it was true of Christ, and it will be true of all those who desire to follow Christ.
And this is an important lesson in how to overcome temptation: Be aware that after spiritual highs, after great successes, after your baptism and your filling with the Spirit, after fasting and prayer, Satan often comes to tempt. When we are weak and we know we are weak, we rely upon God and are protected. But sometimes we start to think our strength is from ourselves, and that becomes a new weakness.
And so what this means is that you must always be on guard and constantly casting yourself upon Divine mercy. There is a reason Jesus taught us to pray daily, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Because every day temptations come. Whether from the devil himself, or other people, or hard circumstances, or from our own sinful desires. Remember you are in a battle on at least three fronts: the world outside will assault you, the devil will shoot his fiery darts, and your own flesh wars against the spirit.
Do not underestimate your foe, or forget the foe within. If you do, you will easily fall into the Devil’s snare.
So that’s the first thing we need to learn from Jesus. Note the occasions when the devil likes to tempt. And don’t think that just because you are full of the Spirit or baptized, that temptations will not come, assuredly they will.
And this brings us to verses 3-12 where we see the kinds of temptations that devil uses against Christ, and there are three principal temptations here.
The first is an appeal to the human appetite. (vs 3-4)
The second is an appeal to human ambition. (vs 5-8)
And the third an appeal to human presumption. (vs 9-12)
So let us see how the devil tempts and how Christ responds.
Verses 3-4 – An Appeal to Human Appetite
3And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.
4And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
Notice that the devil begins by questioning Jesus’ identity. Most likely at this stage in Christ’s ministry, because he has not yet performed any miracles, the devil is unsure whether Jesus is a mere man or something more. And so he tempts to find out, and he also tempts to make him fall.
And this is also how the devil often assaults us. He questions whether we are really the children of God. He sows seeds of doubt in our heart: “If God really loved you, would He let you suffer as you do?” “If you are really a child of God, wouldn’t God want you to be happy? Wouldn’t He want you to satisfy your appetite?”
How many Christians have been seduced by this lie. That God is not actually as good as He says He is, and because God must want me to be happy, He must want me to take and do what I think will make me happy. This is America’s sin. God blessed us in many ways, we forgot God in our prosperity, and now we are paying the consequences for elevating our own appetites above the will of God. This we must repent of and resist with all our might.
This first temptation is very similar to the first temptation in the Garden. Remember the serpent comes to Eve and questions God’s goodness saying, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”… “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 3:1, 4-5) The devil appeals to Eve’s appetite for knowledge, for god-likeness, for the forbidden fruit.
And now Jesus is being tempted like our first parents were tempted. The first Adam gave in to his appetite for what God had prohibited, and now the Last Adam, Christ Jesus fights how Adam should have fought, using the word of God. How does Jesus respond?
He responds by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And the context of that quotation is Moses reminding Israel, before they enter the promised land, how God has provided them with manna for 40 years. Deuteronomy 8 goes on to recall God’s faithfulness in the past and His promise for the future saying: Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you. “Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.
So while Satan tempts us to take right now what God has promised to give us later, Jesus fights back with those promises, and the remembrance of God’s faithfulness.
And this is how you and I must fight. We must keep heaven before our eyes, a world in which there is no sorrow, no tears, no death, no pain. Because that is what awaits us if we persevere in the faith: joy inexpressible and full of glory. When Satan tempts you with a good, look to the greater good that God has in store for those who love Him.
Moreover, you should also fear the consequences of giving in to temptation. Because every time you sin, you weaken your will to resist the next time. And if you give in now, and don’t repent immediately and go in the opposite direction, you are running the risk of self-deception unto destruction. And then once you die, there is no more opportunity to repent, and even if there was, you would not choose it. A will that turns away from God in this life, will remain that way forever. And that should make you fear and tremble and beg for God’s mercy to sustain you.
As it says in 2 Peter 2:19-21, For by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.
This brings us to the second temptation.
Verses 5-8 – An Appeal to Human Ambition/Vainglory
5And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. [this likely some kind of vision]
6And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
7If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
8And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
First observe the lies, the sinking sand, that Satan builds his temptations on.Satan offers to Jesus what he does not actually have the power to give.
He says to Jesus, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
But who is the one delegates authority? Who is the one who owns the world? It is God, not Satan. Satan is a usurper. He claims what does not belong to him and then tries to trick as many as he can to enthrone him above God.
This is why Jesus calls Satan a thief, a liar, and a murderer from the beginning. He says in John 10:10, The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
When King Nebuchadnezzar committed this sin of Satan, attributing to himself a power and glory that belong to God, God rebuked him saying, King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you! And they shall drive you from men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen; and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.
Satan cannot give what he does not possess. And while Jesus could have refuted Satan with many other possible passages and truths, like “I am the God who has all authority,” instead he chooses to quote from Deuteronomy.
And this is because Jesus wants to help us overcome our temptations.Jesus alone can say I AM GOD, whereas you and I cannot. And so Jesus uses a weapon that we also can use. And that is appealing to the written Word, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
This is first commandment stuff, “No other gods before me.” And with this weapon of loyalty to the one true God, Jesus rebukes the devil.
Third and finally, the devil appeals to the vice of presuming upon God to intervene.
Verses 9-13 – An Appeal to Human Presumption
9And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:
10For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:
11And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
12And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
13And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.
Now the devil is using Scripture to try to force Jesus’ hand.
It says in Psalm 91:11-12, For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.
And so Satan is weaponizing the promises of God to protect His people, to get Jesus to kill himself.
Make no mistake. This is the devil inciting self-harm, suicide, death, and he is willing to use Scripture to convince Jesus that, “If God really loves you He will stop you, so give it a try.”
Do you see how cruel the devil is in his temptations? He cannot help himself. He wants Jesus to eat rocks, not bread. He wants Jesus to bow down to him, not God. He wants Jesus to kill himself, and he baits the hooks with the Word of God. Satan will take what God intends for your salvation (Holy Scripture), and he will twist it for your damnation.
Are you aware of the ways that you are tempted to be presumptuous, to be passive when God tells you to be active, to blame God when you are the one responsible for your actions?
As my former pastor Doug Wilson likes to say, “God does not steer parked cars.” So are you moving in faith? Walking by faith? Working out what God is working within? If not, then you are tempting God, you are being presumptuous.
Well how does Jesus overcome this temptation? He could have refuted Satan’s exegesis of Psalm 91. For the Psalm begins by saying, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. In other words, God’s promise of rescue is contingent upon remaining in God’s house, dwelling with Him, not casting yourself away from His presence. Moreover, the kind of deliverance that God promises is eternal and spiritual, not merely temporal and physical. For the Psalm concludes saying, With long life will I satisfy him, And shew him my salvation.
But Jesus does not choose to engage with Satan on Psalm 91. Instead he goes back to Deuteronomy for the third time, and selects a verse that clearly condemns what the devil is suggesting, it says in Deuteronomy 6:16, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
And this itself is instructive for us. There are times when we are outmatched by our opponents, by heretics, by wicked smart false teachers. Their knowledge of Scripture and history surpasses our own. And yet if you Christian, know the Ten Commandments, if you know the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, the basics of loving God and loving your neighbor, and are whole-heartedly seeking to honor God, then you have more weapons than you might think.
And if Jesus, who knows everything, fought the devil with the same Scripture that you and I have, then that Scripture is also sufficient for us to overcome temptation as well.
Moreover, we have this promise from God in 1 Corinthians 10:13, No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
Conclusion
Learn to fight like Jesus fights. Review the armory of truths you already know, and then add to that armory when you meditate on God’s Word. When you hear these sermons. When you pray and sing the Psalms.
Paul says to Timothy, Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Tim. 6:12).
The same can be said to you who confess the Creed every week. Who confess your sins every Lord’s Day. Who confess that Jesus is LORD to the glory of God the Father. Hold fast to that confession of faith steadfast till the end.
If you make gaining Christ your highest ambition, one day you will be able to say with Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7,I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
May God grant you to gain the victory and triumph, through the power of Christ’s love working within you, to the glory of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: Son of Adam, Son of God (Luke 3:21-38)

Son of Adam, Son of GodSunday, February 15th, 2026Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 3:21–38
Prayer
O Father, we thank You for the revelation of Your Son Jesus Christ, in whom the human race may now find salvation. Grant us now to behold the wonders of Your law, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
When do you most feel the good pleasure of God? Have you ever felt as if God is in heaven, looking down upon you with a big smile, loving who you are, loving what you are doing, delighting in your thoughts and actions because they bring glory to Him? Have you experienced the Father’s good pleasure before?
Well, here in our text, Jesus shows us both what God takes pleasure in, and how we also may share in his Father’s delight. Moreover, Luke shows us by this long genealogy that God has been planning this revelation of His love from the foundation of the world.
The revelation of the love of God in Son of God is the centerpiece of human history. The patriarchs looked forward to it, we now look backward to it, and as it says in John 1:12, as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
In other words, by believing in Jesus, you are now included in that long genealogy of Jesus, not according to the flesh, but as a descendant of His according to the Spirit, and indeed that is what your baptism signifies: Your rebirth into the family of God. Your connection to the royal line of God’s Son. Your adoption by the grace of the Heavenly Father.
Innumerable blessings flow from this union with Christ, and yet far too many Christians neglect these blessings, or live in ignorance of them. We forget to make use of the many diverse graces God offers us in His beloved Son.
It says in Psalm 103:2-5, Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, Who satisfies your mouth with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. And on and on it goes!
And so if you are weary, if your strength is waning, if it has been a long time since you’ve felt the Father’s good pleasure, here in our text Jesus will show you the way to enjoy that good pleasure again. Or if you have never known the love of the Father before, perhaps today can be that day for you.
Outline of the Text
Our text divides into two basic sections.
In verses 21-22, we have The Baptism of Christ.
In verses 23-38, we have The Genealogy of Christ.
And as an aside, we won’t spend much time on the actual contents of the genealogy, but if you want to how this harmonizes with Matthew, or why it has 77 names in it, there are plenty of books I can recommend to you ifthat’s a puzzle you want to explore.
The big question we should ask though is, Why does Luke wait until the 3rd chapter of his gospel to give us this long list of names? Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy, but Luke reserves this information so he can link it up with Jesus’ baptism? Why is this?
The main reason is because: who Jesus is, is the explanatory key to unlocking the rest of the book. If you do not know and believe that Jesus is both perfect God and perfect man, that He is both human and divine, you will not understand what Jesus is doing and why he is doing what he does.
And so in this baptism, and in this genealogy, Luke points us to the twofold sonship of Christ. He is the earthly son of Adam, and the eternal Son of God. He is the most beloved Son of the Father, in whom the Holy Spirit abides, and He is the adopted son of Joseph. And it is this twofold sonship that mirrors and reflects the way that God saves us.
Jesus is by nature divine, the natural son of God, but he has a legally adopted human father according to the flesh, Joseph. Whereas we are all natural sons of Adam, children of wrath, dead in sin, but God legally adopts us as His own.
So what Jesus is by nature, we are by adoption, and what we are by nature, Jesus is by adoption. This is the beautiful harmony and touchpoint of how God saves the human race. The son of God became the son of man so the sons of men could become sons of God. That is the main point of this genealogy.
So already Luke is priming us with the truths that we need to understand Christ. Because Jesus is going to do and say things later that are hard to understand, but if we remember that He is perfect God and perfect man, we will see the purpose for his actions: 1) They are to save us, and 2) they are to teach us. They are to reveal to us the true nature of God, and they are to show us how we may become partakers of God, conformed in our sufferings to Christ. And this is especially evident in Jesus’ baptism.
Verses 21-22 – The Baptism of Jesus
21Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened,
22And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
There are three amazing mysteries here: The mystery of the Holy Trinity, the mystery of the Incarnation, and the mystery of our Salvation. And in order to understand a little bit of these mysteries, we can ask some Why questions that this scene provokes.
First of all, Why was Jesus baptized? We know that John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance, but if Jesus is God and he is perfect, he has no sins to repent of. So what then is the purpose for Jesus undergoing this ritual?
There are at least five reasons for the baptism of Christ.
1. The first reason comes from the mouth of Christ, who says to John, when John is insisting that he needs to be baptized by Jesus, Jesus says to him in Matthew 3:15, Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Jesus is baptized to fulfill all righteousness.
That means, Jesus came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law, and it was the righteous thing to do at that time to be baptized by John. Jesus is a new Israel, doing what the law of God required.
2. The second reason for undergoing baptism is to teach us humility. Jesus, who is John’s superior, and who has a superior baptism to John (with fire and the Holy Ghost), voluntarily makes himself inferior to John. And by this action Jesus shows us what his whole ministry is about, serving those inferior to Him. And thereby, teaching us how we may fulfill all righteousness, by serving even those who are inferior to us.
In Philippians 2:5-8, Paul calls this “the mind of Christ.” Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
So Jesus begins his public ministry the way he will end it. By voluntarily subjecting himself to his inferiors. By doing what is not personally necessary for himself, but which is most necessary for us sinners. Jesus is the God and King and Lord who stoops low to serve us, and is exalted on high because of his humiliation.
So do you follow in his train? Does this kind of humility and service characterize your life? Do you submit to those who are superior to you? Do you honor those who are equals with you? And do you humble yourself to serve even your inferiors for their good? For this reason, Jesus was baptized by John.
3. The third reason Jesus undergoes baptism, is to bury the Old Adam. This is another reason Luke links the genealogy to his baptism, because in Christ, the old man dies, and the new man is reborn.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
How does a person get into Christ?
Paul says in Romans 6 that it is by baptism. Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
Jesus was baptized to teach us how the old man dies. He dies through union with Jesus’ death, and he rises again in union with Jesus’ life.
Elsewhere Paul tells us to reenact our baptism on a daily basis.He says in Colossians 3:9-10, Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.
And he says in Ephesians 4:22,that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
4. The fourth reasons Jesus was baptized, was to remove any excuse for us not being baptized.
If you believe in Jesus but refuse baptism, you are failing in your very first step as a disciple. Are you more holy than Jesus? Are you wiser than God as to the necessity for baptism? Are you not actually a sinner in need of cleansing? If Jesus was baptized and had no need for repentance, how can you refuse what you do need, and what the Lord commands?
In the very first sermon of the Apostle Peter, what does he say? It says in Acts 2:38, Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
This brings us to our fifth reason for Jesus’ baptism.
5. Jesus was baptized to show us that through Him heaven is made open to us.
No man can enter heaven’s door unless he is perfect. Unless his sins have been blotted out, washed away by the blood of Christ. And in baptism, this is what God does for us, He forgives our sins.
Jesus says in John 3:5, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
And Paul says in Galatians 3:27, For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
And that means that wherever Christ goes, you may go also. If Jesus has access to heaven, so may you through Him.
This is how Paul can say in Ephesians 2:6, that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places.
And in Hebrews 9:24 it says, For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
So Jesus is baptized to signify that he is the anointed high priest in the order of Melchizedek, He is the one mediator between God and men (1 Tim. 2:5).
This is why Paul tells us in Hebrews to keep our hope and our heart anchored in heaven, because that is where Christ is right now interceding for us.
He says in Hebrews 4:14-16, Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
So do you see what your baptism into Christ gives you access to?
You now have a direct line to heaven! You have high-priest who can sympathize with your weakness. And so do you make use of that direct line? Are you constantly on the horn with God, making your requests known to Him? Because God wants to hear from you far more than you want to be heard, and so go to Him “in Jesus’ name.” Baptism gives you access to heaven, but you still have to make use of that access through prayer.
And in fact we discover that this is also something Jesus does when he is baptized. It says, in verse 21, Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened.
This bring us to a second Why question: If Jesus is God, if Jesus is perfect man, why does He pray? Is He just talking to Himself? Yes and No.
This is where we dip into the mystery of the Trinity and the mystery of the Incarnation. As God, according to His divine nature, Jesus is one with the Father and the same One God who hears and answers prayer. But as man, according to His human nature, Jesus prays to be heard and to teach us how to pray.
It says in Hebrews 5:7-9, who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death [God the Father], and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
As God, Jesus answers prayers together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, they are the One God who answers prayer. But as man, Jesus prays, he cries out, he cries tears, in order to be heard, in order to teach us how just how essential and necessary prayerful obedience to God is. This is why Jesus prays, because according to His divinity He answers.
We may also ask the question: In what sense did Jesus praying and obeying make Him “more perfect?” How do you perfect perfection?
The greater perfection that Jesus achieved, was not a moral perfection (which he always had), but the perfection of his body and ministry. The perfection of glorification. The perfection of completing his mission to the cross.
Prior to his death, Jesus’ body could suffer. He hungered, he was thirsty, he felt sorrow, pain, and deprivation. His body could be cut and it could bleed. But after his obedience unto death Jesus is perfected by his resurrection, never to die or suffer again.
And so Jesus is perfected as the author of our salvation, as the immortal man, the immortal king, who begets immortal sons and daughters who by dying shall never die again. This is the hope of the Christian faith.
As it says in 1 Peter 1:3-4, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
So Jesus was perfected in glory to perfect you for glory. And he did this by a prayerful and constant obedience to God.
And so if Jesus was devoted to prayer and he was sinless, how much more should we be devoted to prayer who still struggle with sin?
St Augustine says, “once we are washed in baptism, daily we are washed in prayer.”
Prayer is how we renew our minds. Prayer is how we renew our love for God. Prayer is what keeps us in heaven with Christ,which is why we are told to pray without ceasing.
Prayer is what gives us the peace of God, as it says in Isaiah 26:3, You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.
And so see what results from baptism and prayer. See what God reveals at the baptism and praying of Christ?
It says in verse 22, And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
A third and final Why question we may ask is, Why the Holy Spirit descends likes a dove?
1. First because a dove signifies innocence. And Jesus is the innocent one.
2. Second is because a dove signifies peace. And the Holy Spirit is the peace of God, and Christ the one who will make peace by his death.
3. Third is because in Noah’s day, the dove was sent out after the flood to find a place to rest. And Jesus is the final resting place for those who desire eternal rest. Jesus is the new creation, who ascends from the flood waters of death. And by hiding yourself in the Ark that is Jesus, you may find refuge from the flood of final judgment. He will carry you safely to the new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Conclusion
And so I ask again as we close: Have you felt the good pleasure of God? Have you experienced the peace that comes from prayer and baptism, and taking refuge in Jesus? Have you experienced what we sing about in Psalm 149? For the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the humble with salvation.
It says in Hebrews 11:6-7, But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
So if you would please God, if you want to feel the Father’s good pleasure, then diligently seek Him. Trust in Jesus as your reward. Condemn this world like Noah did, by living a life of faith, and you shall enjoy for all eternity the good pleasure of God. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: Fruits Worthy of Repentance (Luke 3:1-20)

Fruits Worthy of RepentanceSunday, February 1st, 2026Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 3:1–20
Prayer
O Father, we thank You that while evil rulers may try to imprison and behead your messengers, Your message of truth conquers nonetheless. We thank You for the bold preaching of John. We thank You for Christ’s greater baptism, with the Holy Spirit and fire. We thank you for converting us, for setting our hearts ablaze with divine charity. And we ask that our love would increase and bear fruits worthy of repentance. For we ask all of this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
After two long chapters looking at the birth and youth of Christ, Luke now jumps ahead in time to when John and Jesus are grown men. John and Jesus are now around 30 years of age, and it is John’s preaching that will go before Jesus’ preaching. John’s baptism will go before Jesus’ baptism. And so already God is fulfilling what He promised earlier in Luke 1:16-17 when He said to Zacharias (John’s father), And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
And so how does a person prepare to prepare to meet Jesus? How should you prepare to meet your Creator one day before Whom you shall give an account?
Well, that is what this passage is all about answering. It is John’s job, his special calling, to prepare people, not only for Jesus’ earthly ministry, but for final judgment. And in that respect, you are not very different from John’s 1st century audience. You too are either wheat or chaff, a dead tree or a living tree, and depending on your state, you are headed in one of two directions: Either for God’s heavenly kingdom in glory, or for the flames of eternal punishment.
This is the gospel John comes preaching, “repent and believe, or else.” This is the same gospel Jesus comes preaching. He says later in Luke 13:3, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Jesus says in John 8:24, If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. Jesus says in Mark 11:26, But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive you.
And so your salvation is dependent upon repentance, faith, forgiveness, bearing fruits for God. All of those actions are effects of divine grace, but they are effects that you must choose to manifest.
God does not merely ordain the final destination of His elect; He also ordains all the intermediate steps between. God does not merely predestine us for heaven; He predestines all the means for us to get to there. And those means include your free choice to repent of your sins and to follow Jesus, not just once, but every single day. God is so powerful that He can move us to freely will what He wills.
This is the meaning of what Paul says in Philippians 2:12-13, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Jude says likewise in Jude 20-21, But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
So are you keeping yourself in the love of God? Are you working out what God is working within? Because this is what John charges his hearers to do if they would be ready for Christ and Christ’s judgment.
Outline of the Text
Now our text here divides into three sections:
In verses 1-6 we have The Prophet’s Mission
In verses 7-17 we have The Prophet’s Preaching
In verses 18-20 we have The Prophet’s Imprisonment
Who is John? John is a man on a mission, that mission is to preach, and because of his preaching he will end up in prison. That’s the basic flow of the text.
Verses 1-2 – The When & Where of John’s Ministry
1Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,
2Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.
Observe the state of Israel when God’s kingdom comes. A Gentile Roman Caesar Tiberius is the most powerful man militarily speaking, and he has governors beneath him called tetrarchs. A tetrarch just means a ruler of 1/4th. And so Israel is divided into four different provinces/jurisdictions, Herod’s sons govern three areas, and the Roman Pontius Pilate governs the fourth.
We see also the Jewish high priesthood is divided between two different men, Annas and Caiaphas. We know from Josephus that Annas was basically a mafia Don. He would put out hits on people, he would pay people off. He was like the godfather of a Sadducean crime family. And although Annas had been deposed by the Romans, his son-in-law Caiaphas had been appointed in his stead. Nevertheless, Annas still had so much sway in Jerusalem, that when Jesus is brought for his trial, we are told in John 18:13, they led him away to Annas first; for he was father in law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same year. So Caiaphas may be high priest, but Annas is the real power behind him.
So the world of John the Baptist is a world governed by corrupt and evil men, both in the civil realm and in the religious realm. Luke is giving us the names here of men who will later conspire to kill Jesus. So church and state have become offices/institutions of oppression, injustice, and heresy.
The Sadducees were essentially Jewish heretics (they denied the resurrection, they denied the immortality of the soul, Acts 23:8), and compared to the Sadducees, the Pharisees almost look like the good guys.
The Pharisees have the distinct honor of being that class of people Jesus most frequently argues with. So Jesus at least thinks the Pharisees are worthy of debate, and indeed a number of prominent Pharisees will convert to Christianity. Nicodemus being one of them, and others later in the book of Acts (Acts 6:7), most importantly The Apostle Paul.
Now all of this corruption at the top is what Nebuchadnezzar had dreamt about some 600 years earlier. When Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the great statue of four kingdoms, he tells him in Daniel 2:43-44, As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
So the Romans are the iron kingdom, and the Herodian/Jewish alliance is the clay, and while they rule together, they will never be able to adhere and achieve a unity, and Daniel says this is when the kingdom of Christ shall begin.
So Luke gives us these seven different names of priests and kings because Jesus is coming as the final priest-king Melchizedek. The dominion belongs to Jesus both in the church and outside the church, and none can escape His everlasting rule. This is what Daniel prophesies, it is what John comes to prepare people for, and it is what Jesus Himself will come proclaiming, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15).
Verses 3-6 – John’s Mission
3And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;
4As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
5Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;
6And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
Here Luke quotes from Isaiah 40, and he identifies John as the voice who comes before the Word. Jesus is the eternal Word made flesh (he is the salvation of God), and John is the voice who shall speak of Him.
We observe also that John is baptizing in the Jordan river, and he is a voice crying out in the wilderness.
Why the wilderness? The wilderness is where God first formed Israel into a nation. The wilderness is where God tests people, it is a place of purgation, of cleansing, of learning to trust God and forsaking the vices of Egypt. The wilderness is where God makes for Himself a holy people, and enters into a marriage covenant with them. The wilderness is also where the holy prophets take refuge and gather when tyrants are on the throne.
So John is a man of the wilderness. And he is showing by his location what Israel most needs, where Israel needs to go. They need to be re-constituted as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. They need to be re-sanctified, re-born, and the way they do this is by repentance unto life. John comes preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. This is what the wilderness is for: purging us of evil.
It is also significant that John baptizes in the Jordan river. The Jordan river was where Israel crossed and followed Joshua to enter the promised land. The Jordan River is where Elijah crossed and gave a double portion of his spirit to Elisha. The Jordan river was where Elisha told Naaman the Syrian to be baptized and cleansed of his leprosy (2 Kings 5).
And so by baptizing in the Jordan, John is coming in the spirit and power of Elijah, and he is saying to Israel that they are unclean like Naaman the Syrian. They are lepers in need of a miraculous cleansing, and only God can heal them.
We see also that John is a voice that cries out in the wilderness. John does not speak softly, he preaches loudly, he shouts at people. Why?
There are three basic reasons we shout at someone.
1. Because they are deaf or hard of hearing.
2. Because they are far away from us.
3. Because we are angry.
And all three of these conditions apply in John’s case.
Israel is deaf to God’s voice, and so John cries out.
Israel is far away from God and so John cries out.
Israel is suffering under God’s anger, and so John cries out.
And what does God do with those loud cries of John? He uses his voice to pave a straight path into people’s hearts, to turn them and prepare them to receive and embrace Christ.
John’s preaching is like a bulldozer, an excavator, the concrete trucks and rollers to make Christ’s entrance smooth. The proud must be humbled. The humbled must be encouraged. The perverse must be made pure, the crooked man made straight.
John preaches with hard words because our hearts need the pounding. We all need to be softened to receive the Word that is Jesus. Jesus will say the same thing in his parable of the soils. And James 1:21 says likewise, Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness (softness) the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
John cries out to awaken our deaf hears, to call us nearer to God, and to warn us of the wrath of God, the final judgment. John is the first trumpet blast to warn us of God’s kingdom. Only the righteous may enter, and the righteous enter by faith.
This brings us to verses 7-17 where we hear The Prophet’s Preaching. How does John begin his sermon to Israel? Well, he begins by insulting them.
Verses 7-9 – A Loving Rebuke
7Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
8Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
9And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Now one of the first rules of rhetoric, or public speaking, is that in your introduction you want to endear people to what you have to say. And usually insulting your audience is not the best way to do that.
However here a strong rebuke is a most kind introduction. And that is because John loves these people, he loves this brood of vipers and wants them to be converted from snakes to saints.
John wants everyone to know up front, “I know what you are. And I have not come here to tell you stories or to entertain you, I am not here to gain a following for myself or to build some platform, I don’t really care about your esteem or admiration. I am simply here because the way you are living right now will destroy you.”
Moreover, John says to them, “You think you can escape the wrath of God just by going through the motions of getting baptized and professing repentance (cause everyone else is doing it). Or maybe you think you are too good for that, you aren’t unclean, because you can trace your lineage back to Abraham. Abraham was holy, so you must be holy to.”
John says, “No. None of that.None of that matters unless you personally live differently than you are living right now. There’s a time for talk, but the time for talk is over. The time for action is now. Bear fruits keeping with your baptism, keeping with your profession, otherwise you are a hypocrite or self-deceived.”
John rebukes them, he shouts at them, because he loves them. These crowds coming out to him are the seed of the serpent, the offspring of Satan, the devil is their daddy, and they are in denial about it. And so John is trying to wake them up to what they really are, to their true serpentine nature, and to that poison within that will kill them. Remember what God says will happen to serpents? They get their head crushed. And John would spare them that, if only they will repent.
And so he begins by calling them what they are: A generation of vipers.
How do those vipers respond to this? Those who hear and fear for their lives ask him, “What shall we do then?” And in verses 10-14, there are three classes of people who ask this question, wanting to be baptized, and receive an answer.
Those three classes are the 1) the common people, 2) the tax collectors, and 3) the soldiers.
Verses 10-14 – What shall we do then?
10And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?
11He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.
12Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?
13And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.
14And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.
To the common people John says,He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.
This is a call to love your neighbor as yourself, to clothe the naked and feed the starving.
And this is not actually a work of mercy, it is actually a work of justice. It is due to man as man, as made in God’s image, to not be naked, and to not starve to death. And if a society is unwilling to feed and clothe those who are destitute, that is a society that has lost touch with its own humanity. It says in Proverbs 12:10, The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.
Right now, America is a place where food is abundant and clothes are cheap. It might not be healthy, but you will not starve. Our bigger problem is obesity, cancer, heart disease. Even many of the homeless have more than two tunics, some of them have smartphones. But that was not always the case, and it will not always be the case if we persist in our rage against God and His law. We are still living off some of the Christian capital (moral and financial) of the past. But those accounts are dwindling, we could drain that in an instant.
For example, it is not just or humane to let drugs and immigrants cross our borders unchecked, or to give people clean needles so they can do their drugs more safely. It is evil to legalize things that turn people into zombies, that deface the very image of God within them. And yet this is what we do.
It is a scourge on our nation and our laws, that we tax our citizens to pay for people’s vices, and then people profit off those vices and so now there is a financial incentive to keep those vices going, and to expand them. This is casinos. This is marijuana shops. This is online gambling. This is all kinds of government programs and regulations that actually hurt the poor in the name of helping the poor, that actually oppress people in the name of liberating them.
And so to quote Psalm 11:3, If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do? John’s answer is the same as the Psalmist: You do what is just in the eyes of God.
Psalm 11 goes on to say, The Lord is in his holy temple, The Lord’s throne is in heaven: His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men. The Lord trieth the righteous: But the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, And an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness; His countenance doth behold the upright.
This is the justice God wants from the repentant: Feed the starving, clothe the naked, and seek what is truly good for the poor in the eyes of God.
The second class of people are the tax collectors, what should they do? To them John’s answer might be surprising. John does not tell them to quit their job. John does not tell them to stop collecting taxes. Instead he says, Exact no more than that which is appointed you. In other words, keep the law. Collect for Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but don’t use Caesar as pretext for your own greed and envy.
Later in Luke’s gospel, the tax collector Zacchaeus will be a shining example of what bearing the fruits of righteousness looks like in this vocation.
It says in Luke 19:8-10, Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Zacchaeus was someone ready for Jesus. And so when Jesus says to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house,” Zacchaeus obeys. It says, So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully.
We could think also of Matthew the tax collector, who becomes a disciple of Jesus, and the author of the first gospel. John’s ministry was not in vain.
The third and final class of people who ask John, “What shall we do?” are soldiers. If the common people are like the valleys and the hills made level by caring for one another, and the tax collectors are like the crooked made straight, then the soldiers are the rough ways made smooth.
How does a rough military man make ready for Jesus? John says,Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages. That phrase “do violence to no man” likely refers to extortion, or taking money by threats and intimidation.
John just gives the soldiers the 6th commandment, the 9th commandment, and the 10th commandment. No murder, no bearing false witness, no coveting. This is basic stuff. But we are bad at doing the basics.
And so John is calling them back to basics. Use your strength and sword to defend the innocent and punish the wicked (Romans 13). Use your authority and power to seek out the truth, don’t lie and intimidate to get your way. And be content with what you have.
These are the fruits of righteousness. These qualities and actions reveal whether you are truly alive or dead inside. And lest you think these fruits are optional, John seals his sermon with a warning, a warning that points us to Jesus.
Verses 15-17 – A Warning
 15And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not;
16John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:
17Whose fan (winnowing fork) is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner (storehouse); but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.
John is saying in effect, “However great or holy you think I am, I am nothing compared to Jesus. Jesus is the Judge with whom you have to do. If you think water baptism and my preaching is powerful, the one who comes after me is All Powerful, He baptizes with fire and the Holy Spirit. I can see your outward actions, but He can see your secret thoughts, He can see into your very soul, and most importantly, He can transform your soul by His grace.”
This is the hope of John’s gospel: that those who are ready to receive Jesus, receive from Jesus a greater baptism, a baptism by fire and the Holy Ghost.
And this is how God prepares us for judgment day. He gives His Holy Spirit, so that we can bear the fruit of the Spirit. He tries us and tests us by fire, to remove what is dross, chaff, and evil within us.
It says in 1 Peter 4:12-13, Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.
And Paul says likewise in 1 Corinthians 3:12-17, Now if anyone builds on this foundation [that is Christ] with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.
So the baptism of Jesus in fire and the Holy Spirit, makes us into temples. And then our job is to adorn that temple with good works. Works done poorly or half-heartedly are like wood, hay and straw, they will get burned up. But works done from genuine love, justice, mercy, charity, these are the gold, silver, and precious stones that glorify God and make us glorious.
And this is what John is calling people to do when he says, bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do good works worthy of the God who saved you.
Or as Paul says in Ephesians 4:1-3, walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
These are the fruits that glorify God, and God rewards those who bear such fruits. And how does God reward John for his ministry?
We see in verses 18-20, that John’s preaching was rewarded with imprisonment, and imprisonment that ended in martyrdom. John was rewarded by sealing his testimony to Christ in blood.
Verses 18-20 – The Prophet’s Imprisonment
18And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people.
19But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias his brother Philip’s wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done,
20Added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison.
John reproved Herod for his adulterous marriage to his half-brother’s wife. And because of that stand for justice, for his defense of marriage, John was rewarded with imprisonment and martyrdom.
 We call this a reward because Jesus says in Luke 6:22-23, Blessed are you when men hate you, And when they exclude you, And revile you, and cast out your name as evil, For the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven, For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.
So John received and is now enjoying a great reward in heaven. He was faithful unto death, and so received the crown of life.
And so imitate John’s faithfulness. Heed John’s warning. Repent of your sins and believe in Jesus. Kill the snake within you, and bear fruits worthy of a saint.
And if you are godly, God might reward you with imprisonment, with false accusations, with hatred, martyrdom, and a name written in heaven’s book. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: The Boy Jesus (Luke 2:41-52)

The Boy JesusSunday, January 25th, 2026Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 2:41–52
Prayer
O Father we acknowledge that while one person plants, and another person waters, it is You who give the growth. And so as we hear now Your Word preached, and we desire to make progress in grace, we ask that you would give the increase, make us to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, even fruit that remains, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
Children, Teenagers, I have a question for you: What would you do if you had three whole days to do whatever you wanted? No parents. No grandparents. No babysitter. No restrictions. No school. Let’s say you had the whole weekend all to yourself, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. What would you do with three full days of freedom?
While you think about that, I’m going to ask your parents a question.
Parents, how would you feel, if your children, your teenagers, were left all alone for three days without your supervision?
Would you be stressed out, or relieved? Would you be anxious and worried about them, waiting for the police to call, or would you not sweat it?
Granted, a lot depend on the ages of your children. I know I would be stressed out, I don’t think my children could survive three hours without supervision! So how would you feel?
Alright, thought experiment over. Everyone come back from that dream (or nightmare).
Children, what you want to do when nobody else is watching, reveals if you are good or bad, whether you are good and deserve more freedom, or whether you are bad and need more discipline.
Teenagers, What you do when nobody is telling you what is right or wrong, reveals whether you deserve more freedom or less. Whether you are mature enough to drive a car, or have a smartphone, or hang out with those friends, or play that sport, or be in a relationship, or be left alone at all. What you do with the small measure of freedom you have, reveals whether you deserve more freedom or less.
And this is because, age and maturity are not the same thing. God intends for your age and maturity to grow together, but because of our sin and our stubbornness, it often does not happen that way. In fact, some people never mature into who God created them to be. There are people in their 50s and 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, who are still like toddlers and teenagers in their heart, petty, bitter, entitled, resentful, and there is nothing more tragic than that.
It says in Proverbs 19:29, Judgments are prepared for scoffers, And beatings for the backs of fools.
It says in Proverbs 1:32, For the waywardness of the simple will slay them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them.
Too much freedom given too early will destroy you. Adam and Eve plunged our whole world into sin because they were impatient with God. Because they thought they were smarter than God, that they could handle right now what God had reserved for them later. And because of that disobedience, that failure of the test, God kicked them out of His house. They could not be trusted to tend and keep God’s garden sanctuary, because they could not tend and keep their own heart.
It says in Proverbs 4:23, Keep thy heart with all diligence; For out of it flow the issues of life.
It says in Proverbs 16:32, Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit [is stronger] than he who takes a city.
It says in Proverbs 14:12, There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. And this our first parents learned the hard way.
So what about you? Are you impatient? Are you quick to get angry? Have you learned yet that shortcuts are actually the long way around? Does your maturity match your age? Does the wisdom of your soul fit with the stature of your body?
You see none of us can stop growing older even if we wanted to. But to grow in maturity requires a deliberate choice. A choice that you must make each day to follow Jesus or not. To obey your parents, or not. To obey God, or not.
God says to His people (after 40 years in the wilderness taking the long way to the promised land) in Deuteronomy 30:19-20, I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cleave to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days.
Paul says likewise in Ephesians 6:1-2, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
God wants you to grow in maturity, because maturity means life. Maturity means eternal life. And isn’t that what you want?
If so, the boy Jesus will teach you. Here in our passage, we have Jesus at twelve years of age, with his parents, and without them. With supervision, and then without supervision for three whole days. And at the end of this scene, what does Luke tell us? And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
So what we can learn about maturity from the boy Jesus?
Outline of the Text
There are three principal actions that contribute to our advance in grace, and we’ll use these three actions as the basic outline for our text, and then note some lessons connected to these actions.
In verses 41-45, we have the Public Worship of God.
In verses 46-47, we have Personal Study of God.
And then in verses 48-51, Obedience to God-Given Authorities.
Three actions: Public Worship, Personal Study, and Obeying God’s Authority, these are the three principal actions that Jesus models as the path to maturity.
Verses 41-42 – Jesus Worships with God’s People
41Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.
42And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.
So first observe that Jesus has godly parents with godly customs, and therefore Jesus follows them in those customs.
Joseph and Mary have made it a habit every year to attend the Passover in Jerusalem. How much time did that take?
It’s about 90 miles from Nazareth to Jerusalem. And so to walk that distance would take at least 3-4 days or more depending on the pace and the roads. And altogether this would have been 2-3 weeks away from home, 2-3 weeks of not working, of living on the road, of lodging with strangers, or just sleeping in tents outside, and yet that journey was formative for God’s people, and something Joseph and Mary wanted to do together as a family.
We know from Exodus 23 and Deuteronomy 16 that grown men were required to appear before God three times a year (for Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles). And yet Mary and Jesus accompany Joseph on his journey, because they too want to appear before the Lord. They want to partake of the Passover and remember God’s great deliverance of Israel from Egypt.
So this was the custom of Jesus’ parents, and Jesus embraces these customs as his own.  Of course, according to His divine nature Jesus is the one who gave these customs, and now according to His human nature he gets to observe them.
So parents, do you have godly customs? Do you prioritize the public worship of God over everything else? Do you “remember the sabbath day to keep it holy?” Do you honor God with the first fruits of your increase? Are you showing by your actions where you heart is. Are you teaching your children what is actually important to you?
If not, you are putting a stumbling block in the way of your children following Jesus. How can you say to them, “follow me as I follow Christ,” if you are not following Christ?
Children, do you walk in the same godly customs as your parents? Do you choose not only to walk in them, but also to enjoy them and make them your own?
You have a choice about whether you will conform or not to the ways of God. And this is one of those places where you should not try to stand out, you should not try to distinguish yourself, you should not pretend or think you are too cool for church. Too cool to raise your hands and sing, or get on your knees and confess your sins. Corporate worship is not the place for individual personal self-expression, it is the place to conform yourself to the Word of God, and to the customs of the people of God, not to invent your own. These are the old paths, and God wants you walk in them.
It says in Proverbs 4:10-15,Hear, my son, and receive my sayings, And the years of your life will be many. I have taught you in the way of wisdom; I have led you in right paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered, And when you run, you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go; Keep her, for she is your life. Do not enter the path of the wicked, And do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it, do not travel on it; Turn away from it and pass on.
This Jesus models for us by conforming to the customs of His parents, customs that He had no need to observe being God-in-the-flesh and yet observed for our example.
If ever there was someone who did not need to go to church, it was Jesus. And yet Jesus travels to Jerusalem, he observes the Passover, to teach us what we need. To teach us that we need to go spiritually up to Jerusalem, we need to ascend in our affections to the city of peace, to heavenly Zion, and by keeping that custom of seeking those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God (Col 3:1), we shall attain to that peace.
So this is Lesson #1 from the boy Jesus: When your parents go to church, go with them joyfully. Go with them willingly. If they are sick and you can drive, ask if you go without them. Make corporate worship the thing around which everything else revolves, sanctify this day like God commands.
Can you say with the words of Psalm 84:10,For a day in God’s courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
Because that is the desire of a mature soul. And if you are old enough to sin, you are old to enough to be godly, but godliness will not happen on its own, you must choose to walk in the ways of the godly, and dwell where the righteous dwell.
This brings us to a second lesson which we find in verses 43-45, and that is: Love God’s house even more than your parents do.
Verses 43-45 – “I Thought He Was with You!?”
43And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.
44But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.
45And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.
So observe first that Jesus is twelve when he stays behind in Jerusalem, he’s not 5. Joseph and Mary have made this trip many times before, for 11 years straight they have done so without losing the Messiah.
Second observe, that Joseph and Mary traveled with friends and family, kinsfolk and acquaintance. There was a large caravan of people making this journey, and it would be very easy for Jospeh to think Jesus was with Mary, and for Mary to think Jesus was with Joseph. I am sure that this has happened to some parents in this room (I thought he was with you). Meanwhile little Johnny’s hanging out with the deacons cleaning up.
Now it is one thing to get left behind, another to choose to stay behind. And one of the things Jesus is illustrating for us here is what he will say later in Luke 14:26, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
In other words, your loyalty and love for God must take precedence over your loyalty and love for anyone else (even yourself). As much as Joseph and Mary are godly parents and indeed far more godly than any of us, Jesus is more loyal to His Father in heaven and desires to linger with Him for as long as he can.
So Children, praise the Lord if you have Christian parents who bring you to church. But do your parents proud and surpass them in your own love for God, in your own obedience to Christ, in your own humility and holiness and pursuit of God.
Nothing makes godly parents happier than seeing their children outdo them in godly and holy living, to turn out far better than we taught them. And so children, you have that choice. You have that responsibility. To whom much is given, much is required, and you cannot love God too much. This Jesus shows us, by staying behind in Jerusalem.
This brings us to verses 46-47, where we see what Jesus did with his three days apart from His parents.
Verses 46-47 – Personal Study of God
46And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.
47And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
First note that doctors here refers not to medical doctors but to the professional theologians or teachers of the law. These would be the most respected authorities when it comes to interpreting Scripture, and it is there, sitting in their midst, that Jesus hears, asks, answers and astonishes.
When Jesus has three days apart from His parents, what does he want to do? He wants to have a three-day Bible conference. He wants to be about His heavenly Father’s business, and that business revolves around discussing the Word of God with the wise.
Now again remember, Jesus was already full of grace and truth, wisdom and knowledge from infancy. He was already the God-man. Luke told us earlier in verse 40 right before this scene, And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him [that at 40 days old].
So Jesus did not acquire divinity at some later stage of development, he was born Christ the LORD. He was born worthy of worship, and as the one In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3).
And so when Jesus is said to increase in wisdom in verse 52, this either refers to the increase of human experience, or the increase of revealing to other the wisdom he already has.
And so here’s the lesson: If Jesus knows everything, and yet chooses to sit with fallible human teachers, to hear them, and question them, and answer them with understanding, then how much more do we who were born in ignorance and sin?
Jesus is already perfect, and so he is modeling for us how we can become perfect/complete/mature, even in our youth.
Paul says in Colossians 1:28 that the goal of his ministry is to “present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” And how does Paul intend to accomplish that? He says, Christ is in you, the hope of glory Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
So perfection comes from hearing good preaching, receiving stern warnings, and being taught in wisdom. And this is exactly what Jesus’ ministry will consist of as well.
And so Children, are you making use of the preaching, teaching, and warnings you hear from this pulpit? Do you like the boy Jesus, seek out the wise and listen to them, and ask them questions?
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:4, there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit.
And it says in Proverbs 24:6, For by wise counsel you will wage your own war, And in a multitude of counselors there is safety.
It says in Proverbs 13:20, He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: But a companion of fools shall be destroyed.
So young people, do you surround yourself with older wiser counsellors? Do you learn from and imitate the strengths and graces that are diversely shown in God’s people.
We are not all equally expert in the same field, we are not all equally wise and mature in the same areas, we need one another to see what we can’t see, and we should imitate the best qualities in every Christian we know.
The fool is the one who does not ask advice, who refuses to be taught what he does not know.
It says in Proverbs 18:1-2 of such people, Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.
It says in Ecclesiastes 9:17-18, The words of wise men are heard in silence more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good.
So where can wisdom be found? Chiefly in Christ and keeping His Word.
It says in Psalm 119:24, Thy testimonies also are my delight And my counsellers.
And in Psalm 119:9 it says, How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.
The purity of your life will only be as great as your taking heed to God’s Word. If you fill your mind with TV shows, video games, social media, and vanity, it will hollow out your soul. Whatever stokes your desire for carnal things you must forsake. You must avoid. You must hate. This is the love of God, to hate evil.
It says in Psalm 97:10-12, Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: He preserveth the souls of his saints; He delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, And gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous; And give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.
Finally we come to where Jesus is found by his searching parents.
Verses 48-51 – Obedience to God-Given Authorities
48And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
49And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Wist [know] ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?
50And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.
51And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
Here we see that Jesus is subject/submissive to God in the first instance, and to his parents in the second instance. This is the biblical order of authority for children. God first, parents second.
No human authority is absolute, no king, no pope, no pastor, no parent, no husband or master. All authority is derived from God and is therefore limited by the Word of God. If ever we are commanded by our superior to sin, we say with the Apostles, we must obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29).
And so see how Jesus, the absolute sovereign of all and source of all authority, voluntarily submits himself to many imperfect and sinful authorities throughout his life. And he does this without ever sinning himself.
This is the mindset of Christ. It says of him in Philippians 2:6-8, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Jesus submitted to his parents. He submitted to Caesar. He submitted to Pontius Pilate and suffered for His righteousness. And because of this, it says in verses 9-11, Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Conclusion
The test of youth is, Will you be patient? Will you wait on God to give you the desires of your heart? Will you cheerfully obey the authorities He has placed over you, even if or when they are unjust, even when they hurt you, or sin against you? Will you forgive them? Will you love them? Will you refuse to revile them in return?
Parents are not perfect. No human authority is perfect. But if the perfect boy Jesus submitted himself to God, and obeyed the authorities over him in the flesh (both godly and ungodly), then how much more should we who are not divine?
Jesus so loved you that he suffered crucifixion to save you. He spent three days in death, to save you from death. And that is maturity in the fullest sense: To love deeply, and to suffer for those you love.
Jesus says in John 15:13,Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
If you want to be mature then you must love unto death. For this is what Christ did for us, and what we must grow up to do for one another. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: The Song of Simeon (Luke 2:21-40)

The Song of SimeonSunday, January 18th, 2026Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 2:21–40
Prayer
O Father grant that we like Simeon, may now take up Christ into our arms by faith. That we may behold the light of his perfect humanity, the radiance of His divinity, and receive in ourselves the consolation of Israel, and having received this consolation, to then depart in peace, entering that blessed rest of the undivided Trinity, One God forever, Amen.
Introduction
This morning, we come to the fourth and final song that surrounds the birth of Jesus. Thus far Luke has given us Mary’s Magnificat (My soul magnifies the Lord), then he gave us Zacharias’ Benedictus (Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited and redeemed His people), last week we heard the angelic Gloria, Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men! And now here at Christ’s presentation in the temple, we have one more hymn of prophetic praise. A hymn that helps us ponder the implications of the gospel, and why God became man in Christ.
Now the way that Luke has arranged this final prophesy from Simeon, is by bookending it between two other important sections, so let me give you the outline of our text, and then we’ll walk through it together.
Outline of the Text
Our text divides into three parts.
In verses 21-24 we have Christ observing the ceremonial law. Jesus is circumcised the 8th day, consecrated the 40th day, and this consecration becomes the occasion for adding two more witnesses to Christ.
In verses 25-35, Simeon bears witness and we have his song and blessing.
And then in verses 36-38, Anna bears witness and spreads the good news.
So recall again Luke’s purpose in writing this gospel, he said back in Luke 1:4 it is so that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.
So just in case there was any doubt, he gives us an abundance of credible eyewitnesses in his gospel. We have Mary and Joseph; we have Zacharias and Elizabeth. We have angels and shepherds. And now we have Simeon and Anna. And the question God continues to confront us with in these opening chapters is, How will you respond to this news about Jesus? Will you stumble at the stumbling stone and fall, or will you rise again and build your life upon Him?
Luke has been marshalling witnesses from every age, sex, station, and social class. We have an urban priest and country shepherds. We have angelic armies, and a virgin girl. We have a married man and a widowed woman. We have young and old, male and female, and all are welcome in the kingdom of God.
However, as we will see, not everyone will accept the Divine invitation, not everyone will receive the gospel as good news. Indeed, the rest of Luke’s Gospel and on into the Book of Acts shall illustrate this point: that wherever and whenever Christ is proclaimed, people are divided in their responses to Him.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16, For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?
So some people hear and become more hardened in their sins, some will even try to kill Jesus or whoever is preaching Jesus. But this is exactly how God’s kingdom advances and grows. This is what Simeon prophesies will happen when he says to Mary: Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against. People will speak against Jesus, they will mock at his cross, but the kingdom of Jesus shall conquer nonetheless.
And so as joy-filled and wonderful as the birth of Christ is, there is also a specter of judgment here, there is a shadow of doom that hangs over those who reject Jesus. As the Puritans liked to put it, “the same sun and heat that melts the ice, also hardens the clay.” So what kind of material are you? Into what kind of heart and mind do you receive Jesus? Is your heart a place of love and affection, gratitude and hospitality, or are you hostile to Christ, do you chafe at His words, are you fearful to let Him see what is inside of you?
Simeon says to Mary in verse 35, (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
Who is Jesus? Jesus is the light that exposes things hidden. It says in Hebrews 4:12 that He is a twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Nothing can hide from Jesus.
Jesus is the light who shows you who you really are, and how hideous our sinful state is. This is in part what Christ comes to reveal, but he comes to reveal in order to heal. Jesus reveals our true condition (which is way worse than you think it is), in order to heal you from that terminal disease that is sin. And we see this manifest even from his earliest days, starting right here in verse 21 with his circumcision.
Verse 21 – The Circumcision of Christ
21And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Why was Jesus circumcised? Why did the one who is most perfect as a lamb without blemish, have a part of his perfect flesh cut off? Well for many reasons but I will give just four.
Reason 1. Because Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, that from Abraham’s seed a son of promise would be born in whom all the world would be blessed. And so just as Abraham was circumcised as a sign and seal of the righteousness of the faith (Rom. 4:11), so now Jesus is circumcised as the righteous son (the true Isaac) to whom Abraham looked in faith.
Jesus fulfills and brings to completion what circumcision always pointed to, the cutting off of the old Adam and the putting on of the new. The end of the old creation ruled by sin, and the beginning of a new creation in which righteousness reigns. This is why God commanded that circumcision be done on the 8th day, (which is also the first day of the week) to signify a new heavens and new earth, and a new resurrected heart.
Reason 2. Because as Galatians 4:4-5 says, Jesus was born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And so because circumcision bound a person to keep the Mosaic law, and yet none could keep that law perfectly, Christ comes as both lawgiver and law keeper and fulfills all righteousness for us. As Paul says in Romans 8:3-4, For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
So while the law was holy, just, and good (Romans 7:12) our flesh prevented us from keeping it in its entirety. And so by Christ carrying out all the law’s commands, he shows both the sinfulness of sin, and the righteousness of God’s law. Flesh cannot keep what the spirit of God commands, but Christ can keep it, for He is a man full of the Spirit.
Reason 3. Jesus was circumcised to prove the reality of his human nature. Jesus has a real body that can really bleed, that can really be cut, and cut off for us. And so against those who said that Christ had only an imaginary body (Manichee’s, Docetists) or that His body was heavenly material and not from the virgin Mary, Jesus is circumcised the 8th day to show his solidarity with the human race. Jesus is fully God, and fully man. Of the same exact nature with us, except without sin.
Reason 4. To remove any excuse the Jews might have for not receiving Him. They cannot claim he is a foreigner, or a Gentile, or an uncircumcised Philistine.Jesus is a true Israelite, a true Jew, a fleshly descendent of David, who can trace his lineage back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But as it says in John 1:11-12, He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
So Jesus was sent first to the lost sheep of Israel, but all who believe in Jesus are joined to Him as one flock under one Shepherd.
Verses 22-24 – Mary is Purified and Jesus is Consecrated
22And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;
23(As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;)
24And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.
So again, we see that Jesus’ parents are faithful law-abiding Jews. They submitted to Ceasar’s census, they paid their taxes in Bethlehem, and now they keep the law of Moses, first for circumcision, and now Mary’s purification and Jesus’ consecration.
According to the Levitical laws for cleanliness (Leviticus 12), a woman was ritually impure for 40 days after the birth of a son, and then when those days are accomplished, she is to bring a sacrifice to God according to what she can afford.
It says in Leviticus 12:8, And if she is not able to bring a lamb, then she may bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons—one as a burnt offering and the other as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for her, and she will be clean.
The reason a woman was ritually impure after childbirth was not because giving birth is a sinful act, but because every birth brings another sinner into the world. God was teaching Israel through the ceremonial law the doctrine of original sin, and that all sin, both original and actual, needs to be dealt with by sacrifice.
It says in Romans 5, As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned…For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)…For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. (Rom, 5:12, 17, 19)
So although there was no sin or uncleanness in Jesus’ birth, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, still they carry out this ritual in accord with the law because this is what Jesus whole life shall be about: Exposing our sins and then atoning for our sins. Identifying with our guilt, while Himself being innocent. Offering to God what we ourselves cannot offer, a sacrifice more perfect than turtledoves and pigeons. All this Jesus does for us.
Now there are two witnesses to Jesus’ consecration, Simeon and Anna. And we can learn from both of them what true devotion to God looks like, especially as we reach the latter years of our life. So starting with Simeon, what kind of man was he?
Verses 25-26 – Simeon
25And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. 26And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
Simeon’s name means God has heard. He is just. He is devout. And he is patient. Patiently waiting for God to comfort His people. What does this comfort consist of?
It says in Isaiah 40:1-2, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, That her warfare is accomplished, That her iniquity is pardoned: For she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
Simeon knows that comfort means pardon, comfort means forgiveness, comfort means the end of this warfare and the beginning of everlasting peace. Simeon yearns for this consolation of Israel, and God has rewarded his yearning with a promise: Simeon will not die until he sees the Lord’s Christ, until he holds in hands the consolation of Israel.
Can you imagine waiting for the day when you shall see what you have hoped for? When all your longings and hope deferred become a dream fulfilled and a tree of life? Well, this is that day for Simeon.
It says in Proverbs 11:3, 5, the integrity of the upright will guide them, and the justice of the upright will deliver them, and here now the just and upright Simeon is guided by the Spirit into the presence of the Divine.
Verses 27-28
27And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,
28Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God.
Simeon holds in his hands the one who holds up the world. Simeon takes into his arms, the God whose everlasting arms are holding Simeon in his very being. This is the marvel of the Incarnation. That He whom heaven and earth cannot contain, chooses to be contained in mortal flesh. Chooses to be held by an old man who has been waiting for Him. And so for good reason Simeon blesses God and prophesies saying…
Verses 29-32 – The Song of Simeon
29Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart In peace, according to thy word:
30For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
31Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
32A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.
Simeon can say these words as he looks into the infant Jesus’ eyes. Simeon is saying these words to Jesus directly. Because Jesus is the Lord/Master in whose service Simeon has long been in. Jesus is the Lord who Simeon has been devoted to and waiting to see in the flesh. And now what Simeon desires is to depart in peace, to die, so that he can see that child’s divinity in full, so he can see in the next life what in this life he can only apprehend by faith, the beatific vision, to see the Divine essence through the Divine essence, face to face without a mirror or veil.
Do you like Simeon desire to go and be with Jesus? To be done with the warfare of this life and all its sorrows, and to be joined more perfectly to Your heavenly Savior?
Can you say with Simeon and the Apostle Paul, For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain?Are you, hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better,[but knowing that] Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you [for those under our care]?
Are you homesick for heaven? Because that is the sign of true faith and a mark of true love. To want to go and be with Jesus.
Simeon is a model of Christian justice, devotion, and patience.
Do you hate the injustice all around you, and do you long for the justice of God’s kingdom?
Do you despise the vanity of this lying world with its allurements, and do you long for the solid joys, the pure pleasures of the world to come?
Do we wait patiently for God’s heavenly consolation? For the peace that comes to those who wait in hope?
Jesus says in John 14:27, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Simeon teaches us that our patience in waiting is not in vain, our hope shall be rewarded. Here in part, and in heaven in full.
It says in Isaiah 64:4, Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, Nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who waits for Him.
And in Psalm 50:3-6 it says, Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent; A fire shall devour before Him, And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him. He shall call to the heavens from above, And to the earth, that He may judge His people: “Gather My saints together to Me, Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.” Let the heavens declare His righteousness, For God Himself is Judge.
Judgment is coming, but that same judgement is salvation and vindication for those who love the Lord. So do you look for Him in hope?
How does Mary and Joseph respond to all this? Simeon’s holding their child in his arms?
Verses 33-35
33And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.
34And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;
35(Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
Now observe that these ominous words to Mary are called a blessing. Simeon blesses Mary with this prophesy of people falling and rising because of Jesus, and a sword piercing her own heart.
This piercing refers to the pain she will suffer at how her son is treated. He will be rejected, condemned as a blasphemer, arrested and falsely accused, beaten, mocked, and murdered in the most humiliating way possible, a crucifixion.
Mary will be there when Jesus dies. She will suffer the agony of having to watch the person she loves most, her own son suffer, and that unjustly. Yes, a sword will pierce Mary’s own soul, but it will be the piercing sword in the hand of the Divine healer.
The cross will be a sign spoken against, but that same cross shall become the instrument of our redemption.
As Jesus says in John 3:14-15, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
The cross reveals the thoughts of many hearts.
Do you believe that you deserve to be up there? That your sins are worthy of a most painful death and eternal damnation? Do you believe that this is what your sins deserve?
Many people do not believe that the wages of sin is death. Many people deny they are sinners, they deny the guilt of original sin. They deny that God is the Creator, that Jesus is a Savior, that he died and rose again, they deny that there is a future judgment, or a heaven and a hell. Many people live in denial.
The cross of Christ confronts people with what they actually think about God. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:18, For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
So what is the cross to you? Is it folly, or is it your salvation? Do you believe what God has revealed, or are you living in denial?
This brings us our final witness of Jesus birth, and to a woman who truly lived for the world to come.
Verses 36-38 – Anna
36And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity;
37And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.
38And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
What do we know about Anna? Anna’s name means Grace. And she has been given the grace of prophecy. She proclaims the word of God to those looking for redemption in Jerusalem. She is also a daughter of Phanuel, which means “the face of God.” Phanuel/Peniel was the place where Jacob wrestled with the angel and then said: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved (Gen. 32:30). Anna is also from the tribe of Asher, which means Blessed.
We are told that Anna was of a great age. Depending on how you read the text here, she is either 84, or she has been a widow for 84 years, and then depending on when she was married, she could be as old as 105. So 84 on the younger side, 105 on the older side, but whatever the case, look at what she has done with all those years of widowhood.
It says in verse 37, she departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. Anna lived to worship and serve God.
Conclusion
And so let us close by considering some of the qualities of Anna’s life.
1. Anna loved the house of God. Anna was a woman who could say in truth the words of Psalm 27:4, One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.
Anna was a woman of singular desire for God, and so when Jesus comes in, she gives thanks to God, for her eyes behold the very beauty of the Lord in the face of the infant Jesus. Anna loved the house of God, lived in the House of God, and so enjoyed the blessing of seeing God face to face.
2. Anna was a woman of self-denial. When she was young and unmarried, she was chaste virgin. And after her husband died, 7 years into their marriage, she devotes herself to religious service. Like Jacob who wrestled with God at Peniel, Anna a true daughter of Peniel wrestles with God in fasting and prayer. Anna denies her flesh that she may grow strong in the spirit. She gives herself to the hard work of constant prayer, because she knows, The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous woman availeth much (James 5:16).
In 1 Timothy 5 Paul describes two kinds of widows, faithful and unfaithful. And he condemns those widowswho cast off their first faith…and learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.
Anna is not one of these foolish women. She remains in God’s house, she speaks God’s Word, and she keeps her first faith holding fast to the end.
Anna is a woman of whom this world is not worthy, and there is much we can learn from her example.
3. Third and finally, Anna told people about Jesus. She, spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. Do we do the same?
The life of a widow who fasts and prays and lives at church, is not the life that most young people aspire for. It’s certainly not the American dream. But in God’s kingdom, the first shall be last. Jesus will say later in Luke 6:24-26, But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
Anna is a true prophetess; she is unashamed to tell the world about Jesus. She fasted and prayed and God fed her. God gave to this poor widow His heavenly consolation.May He do the same for you, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: The Newborn King (Luke 2:1-20)

The Newborn KingSunday, January 11th, 2026Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 2:1–20
Prayer
O Father our soul blesses You for the birth of Your only-begotten Son. Grant that we like Mary may keep and ponder these things within our heart, and that we like the shepherds may return to our labors tomorrow, glorifying and praising You for all we have seen and heard. Bless now the preaching of these good tidings of great joy which shall be for all people, to the glory of the undivided Trinity, One God forever, Amen.
Introduction
Well, this morning we celebrate Christmas in January. After five sermons in Luke chapter 1 to prepare us for Christ’s birth, we come now to that moment in which God Himself enters our world.
Now unlike you and I who did not choose where we would be born, or when we would be born, or who our parents would be, or what circumstances might attend our birth, God selected every single detail of how He would personally enter His own creation. Here in these verses we have the Author of all entering His own story.
Now for those of you familiar with the Christmas story, it can be easy to overlook just how odd this whole scene is. Of all the possible details that we might like to know about the birth of God, what does God draw our attention to?
Notice that Mary and Joseph have zero words of dialog here. Jesus himself says and does nothing, except lay swaddled in a manger. Luke under the inspiration of the Spirit chooses instead to tell us about taxes, Caesar, angels, and shepherds. In fact, the only words of dialog in this scene are from angels to shepherds, and from shepherds to one another.
Why is this? Why did God choose to enter our world this way and not another? This is the question we shall ponder together as we consider the mystery of Christ’s birth.
Outline of the Text
Our text divides into four basic sections.
In verses 1-5 we have The Occasion for Christ’s birth.
In verses 6-7 we have The Birth.
In verses 8-17 we have The Celebration.
And then in verses 18-20 we have The Contemplation of all these things.
The Occasion, The Birth, The Celebration, and The Contemplation.
Verses 1-5 – What was the occasion of Christ’s birth?
1And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world (οἰκουμένην) should be taxed.
Recall that Caesar Augustus (aka Octavian) was the first Emperor of Rome. And it was under his rule (27 BC – 14 AD) that the empire enjoyed a good measure of military peace, what would become known as the Pax Romana.
As a sign of this “worldwide” dominion, all of Caesar’s subjects were required to register. This refers to some kind of universal census in order to be taxed. Verse 2 goes on to say…
2(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
4And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Beth-lehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
5To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
So what is the political occasion of Christ’s birth? An empire-wide census, where the people of God, and the land that God had promised to His people is now under Roman dominion, they must pay tribute to Caesar.
This is exactly what God promised would be happen if Israel broke covenant with Him: Foreign powers would rule over them.
And it is under this foreign power’s decree that Jospeh and Mary must travel to Bethlehem, which also happens to be the birthplace of King David.
So we have here a contrast being setup between two kings: the greatest of all earthly rulers, Ceasar Augustus, and the ruler of all creation, the Lord Jesus.
Whereas Caesar is taxing the whole world, and requiring them to travel to their hometowns to be registered. Christ, the Son of God leaves his home in heaven and comes down to earth. The one who created and owns everything (the cattle on a thousand hills, the breath of Caesar), subjects himself to Caesar’s taxation. And he chooses Bethlehem (which means House of Bread), as his birthplace. Why? Because Jesus is the bread from heaven, the bread of life, the one who gives to the world his own body and blood to redeem us from our sins.
As Jesus will say later in John 6:55-57, For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.
No man ever spoke this way, and no Caesar ever ruled this way. But Jesus is no mere man, Jesus is the God-man, and the God-man is a giver of life.
God says in Isaiah 55:8-9, My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.
Summary: So whereas our thoughts take us to our own imagined ideal conditions in which we might like to be born, God chooses by different criteria. God chooses according to what will be most expedient for our salvation.
God chose this moment in time, to show us the difference between man’s ways and God’s ways, between man’s kingdom and God’s kingdom. Who is Caesar? Caesar is a taker. But who is God? God is a giver, whatever you give to God He gives back more. Caesar makes peace through force of arms; God makes peace through sacrificial love. Caesar exalts himself with worldly pomp. God humbles himself unto death on a cross.
Already the words of Mary’s Magnificat are being fulfilled.  Recall she says in Luke 1:51-53, God has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.
Even in the way God enters this world He preaches the gospel to us. He shows us that the way of salvation is by humility, meekness, and the trampling of human pride.
It says in Psalm 25:9, The meek will he guide in judgment: And the meek will he teach his way.
And Jesus will say later to the Pharisees in Luke 16:15, For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. And this is true even in Christ’s birth.
So yes, Caesar has his kingdom and Caesar has his peace. But it is not the everlasting peace that only God can give. It is not the peace of a good conscience, of forgiveness and assurance, of a sincere faith, and love that proceeds from a pure heart. That is the true peace and true life that Jesus gives to the meek.
This brings us to verses 6-7, where the birth of Christ is recorded. And notice how humble this scene is.
Verses 6-7 – The Birth of Christ
6And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
7And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
These are all the details God wants us to know. Mary gives birth, Jesus is her firstborn son. Mary herself wraps him in swaddling clothes; indicating there is not a nurse there assisting her and/or the birth was rather painless. Mary herself also lays him in a manger (a feeding trough for animals). And why? Because there was no room for them in the inn, (the house). They are outside (in a barn or in a cave) where the animals are.
This is God’s chosen way of entering His world. And He chose this as His nativity scene (His icon for our remembrance) to teach us about the higher ways of His kingdom, to reveal from the beginning of His earthly life, the meekness and lowliness of his own heart (Matt. 11:29).
Let us attend to a couple details here.
Why is God laid in a manger? What is signified by Christ laying in the place where animals eat grass and hay?
It says in Isaiah 40:6, All flesh is grass. And what has God chosen to assume and redeem though Christ? Our flesh. Our nature. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: But the word of our God shall stand for ever (Is. 40:8).And here in this manger what do you have? The Word made flesh. God made grass.
And so if Jesus is the food in the manger, then what are we?
Animals. Beasts. Sheep and Oxen. Goats and Rams. We are those creatures who listened to the Serpent, and who need the image of God restored in us so that we may share in God’s dominion.
It says in Isaiah 53:6, All we like sheep have gone astray.
It says in Isaiah 1:3 of our ignorance, The ox knows its owner And the donkey its master’s crib (manger); But Israel does not know, My people do not consider. In other words, the animals are smarter than us when we sin.
And likewise in Psalm 73 it says, So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee…Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: But God is the strength of my heart, and my portion [my food] for ever.
So God has chosen to cure us of our beast-like ignorance. To heal us of our animal passions and the irrational cravings of a carnal mind. And he does this by making Himself food for us. By assuming our flesh, and that without sin, and by making his pure and spotless body food for the lowly.
God chooses to lay where simple creatures may go to eat. The gospel is not that complicated, it is as simple as repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus. Come and eat. And we see in the book of Acts that when simple people, like Peter and John feast and feed upon Christ, they become bold and wise unto salvation.
For Luke says of them in Acts 4:13, Now when the [Jewish leaders] saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.
So have you been with Jesus? Have you repented of your own willful ignorance of the grace of God? Have you forgotten who your Master is, and what will actually nourish your soul? Have you wandered like a sheep from the fold of God? If so, return. Those who come earnestly and honestly He will by no means cast out.
So already at Christ’s birth, our future salvation is foreshadowed. Do you remember what will Jesus later sing from the cross? The words of Psalm 22 which recalls his birth. He prays, But You are He who took Me out of the womb; You made Me trust while on My mother’s breasts. I was cast upon You from birth. From My mother’s womb You have been My God. Be not far from Me, For trouble is near; For there is none to help. Many bulls have surrounded Me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me. They gape at Me with their mouths, Like a raging and roaring lion…Save Me from the lion’s mouth And from the horns of the wild oxen! You have answered Me…The poor shall eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever!
Notice that Jesus is surrounded by animals (literal and metaphorical) at his birth and at his death. Some surround him because of malice and envy like lions to devour. And others because they love Him and worship Him and want their soul to be satisfied.
Moreover, we notice another detail that foreshadows the death of Christ. Where was Jesus born? Outside the house, because there was no room inside the house.And so also Hebrews 13:12 says, Jesus suffered outside the gate, outside the walls that should have welcomed him in. And so while in David’s hometown no room was found for David’s Lord, David’s Lord will later say, In my Father’s house are many rooms (mansions)…I go to prepare a place for you (John 14:2).
The God who is left outside in the dark of winter, is the God who shall die to turn every winter into a Christmas celebration, and to turn every season into a season of light and harvest, joy and gladness.
And this brings us to verses 8-17, where the first celebration of Christmas takes place. And notice who does God choose to share the news of His birth with?
Verses 8-17 – The Celebration
8And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
Why does God choose shepherds to be the first recipients of this news, this gospel? For a few reasons:
1. Because as Psalm 23 says, The Lord is my shepherd. God is the great shepherd of His people, and so he shares with his fellow shepherds (pastors) the news that they also shall teach.
2.Because shepherds signify the Old Testament patriarchs to whom the promise of God’s kingdom was told.
What was David before he was king? He was a shepherd in the country of Bethlehem (just like these shepherds).
What was Moses before God spoke to Him from the burning bush? A shepherd, tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, priest of Midian (Ex. 3:1).
What was the vocation of Jacob and the original twelve sons of Israel? Joseph says to Pharoah in Genesis 46:32, the men are shepherds. And then two verses later we are told, they may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.
What was Abel, the first martyr and prophet according to Jesus? It says in Genesis 4:2, Abel was a keeper of sheep.
So God chooses shepherds and faithful shepherds at that (those who are keeping watch over their flock by night) to be the first witnesses and human messengers of Christ’s birth.
This is the fulfillment of God’s promise to David, Moses, and the shepherds of Israel.
3. Because the job of a shepherd is to feed the sheep, and where is the best food, the greenest pastures and the stillest waters to be found? They are in wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And so it is most fitting that God sends the angels to tell them where this food is found. We read in verses 9-17…
9And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, Good will toward men.
15And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Beth-lehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
16And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
17And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.
There is much here but let us just highlight a few words these angels proclaim.
In verse 10 we see this is good news of great joy. The Triune God is eternally joyful in Himself and through Christ that joy is extended to others. How many others? The angel says, this is good news of great joy, which shall be to all people. God’s gospel is a universal invitation to rejoice, all are invited to come to the King’s feast.
While Caesar Augustus sent forth a universal decree to be taxed, God sends forth a universal invitation to receive the greatest gift. What is that gift? Why should we rejoice?
The angel says in verse 11, For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
Three titles are assigned to Jesus: Savior, Christ, and Lord.
1. Savior signifies the action of Jesus; He will save us from our sins. He will save us from the devil’s clutches. He will save us from eternal punishment. He will save us from our own fleshly desires. He will save us from ourselves. Jesus is the savior and His salvation brings us joy.
2. Jesus is the Christ. Christ means anointed one. Jesus is the anointed king, the anointed high priest, the anointed prophet of God. He is the very word of God full of the Holy Spirit, full of grace and truth, He is the sender of the Holy Spirit together with His Father. Jesus is the Christ and those baptized into Christ are called Christians, little anointed ones.
3. Jesus is Lord. That is, He is God. There is one God, eternally subsisting in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And Jesus is the Son who alone assumes our human nature. Fully human, fully divine, One Lord Jesus Christ.
To know Him and to understand Him, is the greatest of all gifts. And this is why the angels of heaven sing Glory unto him.
It says in verses 13-14, And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, Good will toward men.
First observe that that word host means army. This is God’s angelic army come to announce the reason for the heavenly king’s birth. It is to make peace. It is show forth God’s favor (His good will). It is to invite the whole world to join them in singing, “Glory to God in the highest!”
Usually when an army shows up, that means war. That means battle. That means prepare yourself to fight. But when God’s army appears on earth, they come announcing peace.
And so from this moment onwards, the question becomes: How shall peace be made? How shall Jesus bring peace to a world living under Roman peace? What kind of peace does Jesus come to bring? How is the kingdom of God different from the kingdoms of this world?
These questions the gospel of Luke shall go on to answer. And as Colossians 1:20 says, He made peace through the blood of his cross. But at this moment in the story, there is only the promise of peace made, but no explanation how.
And this leads us to our fourth and final section of this passage, and where we shall close.
Verses 18-20 – The Contemplation
18And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
19But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
20And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
First notice the response of all who hear this news. They wonder. They marvel. Do you wonder and marvel at birth of Christ? At the word of the angels, and the preaching of the shepherds?
Second observe Mary’s response. God could have sent an angel directly to Mary (He had done it before), and He could have surrounded that stable in Bethlehem with angelic choirs. But instead, God sends the angel to the shepherds, his angelic choir appears to those out in the countryside. And it is the shepherds who come and tell Mary what the angels told them. These are the ways of God. He wants us to share in the sharing of good news, because in the sharing our own joy is increased.
And now here in Mary we see the joy of contemplation. The joy of gazing at the truth in our heart with delight. Mary treasures these things, she ponders them in our heart, she marvels at the mystery that she just gave birth to the Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lord.
And so do you like Mary treasure what you hear? Do you meditate upon the Word, wondering and marveling at the mysteries revealed. Do you apply these truths to your own life and struggles, temptations and fears, looking to Christ as the source of your strength?
What is the very first action of the blessed man in Psalm 1? His delight is in the law of the Lord; And in his law doth he meditate day and night.
It says in Psalm 119:97, O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: For they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: For thy testimonies are my meditation.
It says in Psalm 63, My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; And my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, And meditate on thee in the night watches.
Saints of God, do you meditate day and night? Do you ponder and treasure the things of God? Because this is the way to blessedness. This is the way to joy. May God grant you such holy and constant meditation of Him, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Benedictus (Luke 1:68-80)

BenedictusSunday, January 4th, 2026Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 1:68–80
Prayer
O Father, we thank You that in this world that is full of broken promises, You are the God who cannot lie. You are the God who always keeps His Word, who always keeps covenant, and who loves to show mercy to those who desire peace. Grant us Your peace now and forever, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
In the year 110 AD, about 80 years after Christ’s ascension on high, a Roman governor named Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan. And in this letter Pliny asks the emperor what the policy should be for prosecuting alleged Christians. Already Pliny had executed some Christians for their refusal to burn incense to Caesar and curse Christ, but he says that if he were to keep prosecuting them in this way, “Many persons of every age, every rank, and also of both sexes are and will be endangered. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms.” Just two generations after Jesus died and rose again, and the Roman empire is full of Christians, young and old, rich and poor, male and female, country folk and city folk, all spreading their religion according to Pliny, like a contagion.
In this same letter we also have one of the earliest descriptions (outside of the New Testament) of what a Christian gathering looked like. Pliny says, “They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not to falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food–but ordinary and innocent food.”
And so here you have an unbelieving Roman official attesting that Christians would gather together for a potluck. They would meet early in the morning before the sun rose, and swear oaths to keep God’s law, and during their gathering they would sing to one another, “a hymn to Christ as to God.” Of course, this should not surprise us since Paul commands the church to do this in Ephesians and Colossians, he says, teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord (Col 3:18, Eph. 5:19). From the beginning Christianity has been a religion of singing. Singing to one another. Singing unto Christ as God.
Now as far as we know, the 150 Psalms of David were the original hymnbook of the Christian church. But as time went on and the gospels were published and circulated, the church also started to put to music the inspired words of the New Testament as well, especially some of the first “hymns to Christ as God.” So by the time of the 6th century, Mary’s Magnificat was being sung in the liturgy, and also the text we have before us this morning, which is Zacharias’ song, now known as the Benedictus.
That word Benedictus is just the Latin word for Blessed, and it is taken from the first line of Zacharias’ prophesy, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel (Benedictus Dominus Deus Israël).
And so my hope for you this morning is that by understanding a little more the meaning of these words, these lyrics, you may be moved like Zacharias, moved by the Holy Spirit, to bless the God of Israel. For what we have before us in our text is an inspired New Covenant example, of what Psalm 103:2 tells us to do, Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits.
The Benedictus is all about blessing God for His many saving benefits. And it is those benefits we shall call to mind again this morning.
Outline of the Text
We are focusing in on verses 68-79, which is prophetic poetry. And this poem divides into two basic sections:
In verses 68-75, Zacharias extols The Mystery of the Incarnate Lord.
In verses 76-79, He extols the The Mission of John to Prepare People for that Lord.
So we have 1) The Mystery of the Incarnation, followed by 2) The Mission of John the Baptist, so let us walk through this text together.
Verses 68-69 – The Blessed God Blesses Us
68Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; For he hath visited and redeemed his people, 69And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David;
What does it mean to bless God?
To bless God is to confess with your mouth praise. And more specifically to praise God because He is most blessed (He is most happy). Blessedness is God’s very nature.
What makes a person perfectly happy is the perfect possession of a perfect good. And this God alone possesses in Himself, and He has created us to share in the happiness that He is.
So whereas you and I have a happiness that fluctuates according to the goods we have or do not have, and how permanent they are or are not, God is the only permanent and perfect good, and in this life we can only possess Him by faith, but in the next life we shall enjoy Him by sight. And this is what Jesus calls in John 17:3, eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
And so because God wants you to share in His own abundant happiness, He chooses to come down to us in the most personal way, not as an angel, not as a voice in a cloud, or a fiery mountain or a burning bush, or an invisible force, but rather in the man Christ Jesus, to visit and redeem us from our sins.
This is the reason why Zacharias blesses the God of Israel: For he hath visited and redeemed his people And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.
Here in these opening verses are contained three momentous actions of God.
1. First, He has come down to visit us. This refers to the mystery of the incarnation, that the unborn child growing within Mary’s womb, is none other than the God of Israel in human flesh.
2. Second we are told that the purpose for this divine visitation is, to redeem His people.
Just as the nation of Israel was in bondage in Egypt, slaves to Pharoah, treated as Pharoah’s property, just so the whole world was in bondage to Satan and sin, subject to death and in need of someone to pay our debt and purchase us out of slavery.
This is the new and greater Exodus Jesus comes to bring. Jesus is the Passover lamb, the New Moses. Baptism becomes our Red Sea crossing. Jesus is our new High Priest, of whom Hebrews 9:12 says, by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
And it says likewise in Colossians 1:13-15, that God the Father, hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.
So already before Jesus is born, Zacharias is prophesying the purpose for his birth, He was born to die, born to redeem us from our sins.
3. Third, he extols the victory of Christ’s kingdom saying, And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.
This raising up of the horn refers to Christ’s resurrection and enthronement as king. It says in Psalm 132:17-18, There [in Zion] I will make the horn of David grow; I will prepare a lamp for My Anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, But upon Himself His crown shall flourish.”
What is a horn but an animal’s crown. A vessel for pouring out oil (1 Sam. 16:1), an instrument to make the walls of Jericho crumble (Josh 6:5). The horn signifies power and beauty, strength and glory. In the book of Daniel, a horn signifies a king and the extent of his kingdom. And so who is Christ but the king of kings, who says after his resurrection in Matthew 28:18, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. And as we heard earlier from Psalm 72, his dominion shall be from sea to sea.
In Revelation 19 it says of Christ, And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
So who is Jesus? He is The Triumphant Horn of salvation. The reason we bless the God of Israel is because He joined to Himself our humanity to save us from the wrath to come. Jesus was born to die, He died to redeem, and He did not stay dead but rose victorious as king. All of this so that you may share in His blessedness, so that you can share in the eternal happiness that God delights to give.
So dear Christian, Does your soul bless the Lord? Can you say with Psalm 104:33-34, My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
Or have you forgotten His many benefits?
God gives you His word, and gives you these songs to help you remember what we are so prone to forget.
This brings us to verses 70-73 where we are told that all of these benefits were promised by God in times past.
Verses 70-73 – Prophets Since The World Began
70As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, Which have been since the world began:
71That we should be saved from our enemies, And from the hand of all that hate us;
72To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, And to remember his holy covenant;
73The oath which he sware to our father Abraham,
So here Zacharias takes us back to the beginning of the world and the patriarchs of Genesis.
Who was the very first prophet and martyr for the faith? According to Jesus it was Adam and Eve’s son, Abel.
Jesus will say later to the scribes and Pharisees in Luke 11:49-52, Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
It is interesting that this name Zacharias which means “God remembers,” is also the name of the last prophet who was martyred in the Old Testament canon (2 Chronicles 24:20-22), and now the son of Zacharias, John the Baptist will become the last prophet to be martyred before the death of Christ.
And so what exactly has God remembered that martyrs like Abel and Zacharias foretold and which John the Baptist will also proclaim.
It is nothing other than God’s coming judgment. The day of the Lord. God’s punishment of sin both temporal and eternal. John says in Luke 3:17, His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.
According to Genesis 4, the blood of Abel cried out to God for vengeance, for the making right of Cain’s murderous wrong.
Likewise in 2 Chronicles 24:22 it says, And when [Zacharias] died, he said, The Lord look upon it, and require it. Require what? Require justice.
And so for those who refuse to plead the blood of Jesus, all that is left for them is Divine judgment, the receiving of what they deserve, God’s vengeance for every sin.
It says Hebrews 12:24 that Christ’s blood, speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, namely forgiveness. So for those who refuse the price of redemption Christ offers upon the cross, they are choosing instead to receive the wages of sin, namely eternal death.
If you do not repent of every sin and plead the blood of Jesus, you are as those who condemned Christ to death, calling God a liar and saying, His blood be upon us, and on our children (Matt 27:25).
The message of the prophets from the very beginning is that God is just and God is merciful, and if you do not fall upon His mercy seat, only justice remains. Well Jesus is that mercy seat, the only safe place to hide from the wrath to come. So who is your shelter? Who are you trusting in?
Zacharias goes on in verse 71 to say that one of the results of Christ’s judgment is, That we should be saved from our enemies, And from the hand of all that hate us.
Who are those who hate the church? Who are those enemies from which we shall be saved? They are all those people and powers, spiritual and physical, human and angelic, political and ecclesiastical, who would oppose Christ and his people.
This includes men like Cain, who envy, hate, and murder their own brother. This includes women like Potiphar’s wife, who would try to seduce the righteous and then falsely accuse them. It includes evil rulers like Ahaz and Jezebel, who persecuted Elijah and enticed the people into idolatry.
It includes Satan and his demonic hordes. It includes our own sinful flesh and perverse desires. Anyone or anything that does not love and serve Jesus is counted an enemy of God, and all such enemies shall be defeated.
Some of those enemies were defeated 2,000 years ago. Some of those enemies God permits to remain for a time to test us, try us, and increase our faith. All of us who now love Jesus used to be His enemies, and so aren’t you thankful that Christ conquered you?
The gospel promise is a promise of deliverance from everything that hinders our happiness in God.Some of those enemies Christ destroys immediately, some he deals a death blow but allows to live on for a time, some of them await the final judgment and the lake of fire.
So while Jesus Christ the God-man is presently reigning over heaven and earth right now, that same Jesus is very patient, very kind, and as it says in 1 Timothy 2:4, God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, and that is why He tarries, that is why He permits so many enemies to continue for a season, that we may be converted to Him and bow the knee willingly before judgment day.
So God has performed in Christ the mercy He promised to Abraham and our fathers. And when God’s mercy encompasses a person, it changes them from the inside out. It transforms us to desire what is truly good for us. In verses 74-75 we see what that truly good life looks like.
Verses 74-75 – The Good Life
74That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies Might serve him without fear,
75In holiness and righteousness before him, All the days of our life.
Recall this was our fifth diagnostic question last week. Do you desire from God nothing more and nothing less, than to serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness forever?
Because that is the desire of someone who has received God’s mercy.
Why did God save us from Satan, sin, and death? To bring us to a loving service of Him, in holiness and righteousness all our days.
Does not your heart yearn for this rest? This perfect peace? This freedom from all fears and doubts, liars and deceivers? Where there is secure tranquility and tranquil unity amongst the joy of myriads upon myriads of angels and saints more numerous than we can count?
This is the rest God promises to those who will not rest until they rest in Him. Is this the desire of your heart?
It says in 1 John 4:18, There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear. And so while in this life our love for God is very small and imperfect, and our capacity to receive His love is constantly assaulted by sins and fears, a day will come when we may cast aside this body of death and embrace in full the glorious love of our Redeemer.
But in the meantime, He gives us a taste of these gifts in varying degrees. At present the church in our region is not suffering overt persecution, we may gather freely and worship God according to His Word. This is a great freedom, a hard-won freedom, that many Christians have never enjoyed.
But how have we used this freedom? Have we used it to grow in holiness and righteousness? Have we made every effort to become holy as He is holy, keeping ourselves unstained from the world, hating even the garment that is stained by the flesh?
When God gives His church a measure of liberty and then we abuse that liberty, He often removes it to teach us what that liberty was for. Do we want to be free so you can worship God? Or do you want to be free so you can just do what is right in your own eyes?
The freedom God gives is a freedom to become conformed into the image of His Son.Is this what you are doing with the freedom you have?
If not, you are not alone, you are like many of the Jews in Jesus’ day. And God knows how slow we are to hear, and how dull our understanding is, how forgetful we are. And so from His mercy he sends a messenger to prepare people for what He intends to do. And this is what Zacharias extols at the end of this song.
Verses 76-79 – The Mission of John the Baptist
76And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord To prepare his ways;
77To give knowledge of salvation unto his people By the remission of their sins,
78Through the tender mercy of our God; Whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
79To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.
Notice that we are not born walking in the way of peace. Someone needs to guide us there. And here we see how God guides His people, first through John, then through Jesus.
What does John do? It says in verse 77 he gives knowledge of salvation unto God’s people, and that that knowledge consists in the remission of sins. The knowledge that you are a sinner and need to repent.
Remember that John is the son of a priest.  And it says in Malachi 2:7, For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, And they should seek the law at his mouth: For he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.
And so John prepares people by preaching the truth. In Luke 3:3 we are told, And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
And then Jesus comes, and what does Jesus do?
Jesus comes and forgives sins. How? It says in verse 78, Through the tender mercy of our God. Jesus is the fullest expression of God’s mercy. He is mercy in the flesh.
To show mercy is remove a person’s misery (their defects) insofar as you are able. But how able are we to heal ourselves? How able are we to change a person’s heart and all our own personal defects? How able are we to pay the debt for our own sins, nevertheless another person’s sins? We are totally unable. We are those who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death.
But who is Jesus? Jesus is God. Jesus is God’s mercy. Jesus is the one says, I came to seek and save the lost. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance (Mark 2:17).
Jesus is God’s mercy come to heal you of your misery by His infinite power.
Paul says in Romans 8:3-4, For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Jesus gives what no mere man can give. Jesus gives the Spirit of God. Jesus gives a transformed heart. Jesus gives a complete forgiveness, so that Romans 8:1 may become true of us which says, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. So what are you walking in?
Jesus is the light of the world, the dayspring from on high, who guides our feet into the way of peace. That way of a peace is what Paul calls, “walking in the Spirit, minding the things of the Spirit and not the things of the flesh.” So do you have this Holy Spirit? Do you have God’s peace?
Conclusion
What will make Christianity spread like a contagion again? What kind of people will convert the Empires of our day, even as the Roman Empire was eventually conquered by Christ?
It will be those who walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. It will be those who want to serve God without fear, in righteousness and holiness all their days.
It will be those who refuse to bow down and burn incense to all our American idols, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” Mammon, Pornography, Feminism, Technology. These are all idols to help us idolize ourselves. We want people to serve and worship us. We are our own gods. We want God to serve and worship us. This is what Satan wanted, and it is what he seduced Eve into grasping for, the fruit that will make us like God.
What Satan offered with a lying tongue, God now gives freely and truly to all who believe on His Son.
For Jesus Christ was hung like fruit upon the tree. And by grasping for Him you may take hold of eternal life. Your eyes will be opened to know true right and true wrong, and you may become like God sharing in His blessedness.
For what does Paul say in Romans 8:29? He predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his Son. And in 2 Peter 1:4 it says that by trusting in God’s promises, we may become partakers of the divine nature.
So while the world is busy exalting itself, worshiping itself trying to play god and rule others, the true God came down and humbled Himself, died for our idolatry, to make us partakers of His blessedness. To make us share in His divine life.
If you know these saving benefits, then may you bless the God of Israel, now and forever, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.