Well, will you remain standing for the reading of the Word? It's from Galatians 4:4-5 and also Luke 2:23.
Galatians 4:4-5: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoptions as sons."
Luke 2:23: "Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about 30 years of age, being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph."
This is the Word of the Lord. You may be seated.
Easter season is quickly coming. I didn't get to mention this the first hour, but I do want to invite you. I know Paul mentioned it at the announcement time. We have a lot of things happening during the Easter season. We'll be mentioning these, but one of them is on Wednesday, March 27th, that's the week of Easter. I'm going to be holding in here kind of a multimedia presentation sort of a thing on the last week of Jesus' life, specifically looking at the events surrounding the resurrection. If you were here last year, I did kind of part one of this. I did the lead-up, the week that led up to the crucifixion, and then we're going to talk this year just about the events and the chronology around the resurrection.
This should be a fun evening. It'll be enjoyable, and I hope you can be a part of it. But right now, open up in your Bibles to Luke chapter 3. That's where we find ourselves today.
I have to say, I've been looking forward to this text for this reason: this is the first time—actually, this service is the second time now because I did it the first hour—that I've ever preached a passage of Scripture like this. This passage of Scripture isn't a narrative; it's not a didactic teaching section; it's not poetry; it's not Psalms. It's actually just straight-up a genealogy.
Now, I think most people know what a genealogy is, but in case you don't know, when I refer to something as being a genealogy, it is a written record that traces the ancestry of a certain person or family. In Luke's gospel, he records the genealogy of Jesus. When you look at verses 23 really to the end of the chapter, you see a list of name after name after name of all of these people that make up Jesus's family tree.
What we're going to do today is we're going to look at this genealogy, and just to put you at ease, I'm not going to read all the names this morning. We'll just jump in and look at certain passages. But I need to set the context for this genealogy a little bit. Like, why, Luke, do you choose to just write this long list of names? Why include the genealogy of Jesus's family?
Well, we have to understand something: to the Jews, genealogies were very important; they were very significant. Today, we kind of like genealogies, but more out of curiosity. We like to know maybe if there's anybody in our family tree who ever did anything significant or important. But back then, genealogies were important for a number of different reasons.
I want to consider these with you now. It's in your notes this morning, but let me just walk through these.
Number one, like today, one of the reasons why your genealogy was so important was that it established your right of inheritance to property and all that went with it. Like today, how do you know if you have the legal right to inherit something? Even today, the law passes the inheritance on to family members. In Jesus' day, this was really significant. You could only make a claim on land; you could only make a claim on property if you could trace your family to the person who was deceased.
For a Jew, when God brought the Israelites into the land of promise, He divided up the land amongst the tribes and families. So, like, the Wnikkis would have had a plot in the Holy Land, and then as the generations grew, that plot would have been divided amongst us. The way that I could make a claim to that plot of land was through my heritage.
This also led to something that God established in Leviticus 25:25 called the kinsman redeemer. Your ancestry formed the basis of the principle of what they call kinsmanship redemption. Now, you might ask, "What is kinsmanship redemption?" I'll say thank you for asking; let me tell you.
Kinsman redemption was this: because the land was divided up in Israel amongst families, if over time you, as you were working the land, fell into debt so you couldn't pay your debts, instead of your land and your animals being immediately sold to somebody outside of the family, God established for the people of Israel this idea of kinsman redemption, where the first of kin would go to them to say, "Rather than letting your property fall out of the family line, do you want to buy it?" If that person said no, then it would go to the next of kin, and the next of kin, and the next of kin, because God was trying to preserve families and their property so that it wouldn't simply go to somebody outside the family.
You wanted to know who your kinsmen were, who your ancestors were, so that it would protect you and your family in the long run.
Another reason why ancestry was so important was that it could impact your taxation. This is probably the least popular of all the reasons why you want to know your genealogy, but we saw this in Luke's account because Joseph and Mary had to travel from Nazareth to the town of Bethlehem to pay their taxes because that's where they were going to be counted. So, you wanted to know where you came from; that could impact your taxation.
Fourthly, your ancestry determined your eligibility to serve as a priest. There were only certain Israelites, certain Jews, that were permitted to serve in the temple, to serve as priests. They had to be part of the Levite line, and so you couldn't serve as a priest; you'd be illegitimate. There were even curses associated with the fact that if you tried to serve as a priest and you didn't come from the tribe of Levi, the only people that had that right were again traced through their ancestry.
Then the final thing—and this is going to be important to what we're going to see a little bit later on—is that your ancestry determined whether or not you could make a claim to being a king or the Messiah. You see, the line of kings came through David's line. If I wanted to make a claim to be a king within Israel, if I would ever sit on that throne, I would have to come through David's line to be a legitimate king. The same thing had to be true for the Messiah. The prophets had said that there was through a specific line, the line of David, that the Messiah would come.
So, anybody who went around in Jesus's day proclaiming to be the Messiah could be easily discarded if they could not prove that they were from the Davidic line. Are you following with me on that?
So, ancestry and genealogies were important, and it makes sense when you understand this background why Luke, as a historian, would understand that the people he was writing to valued this kind of thing. For us, it's just a long list of names, and your eyes kind of gloss over as you read through it. But for the people of Israel, they're like, "No, no, no, this helps to solidify and even validate Jesus and who he was."
But as we're going to see today, there's more to it than simply that. There's a deeper purpose in the genealogy, both where Luke puts it in his gospel and why he places it there. That's what I want us to ultimately focus on.
But before we get there, there's just two things you need to know about this genealogy in particular. The first is this: Luke's genealogy is not the only genealogy of Jesus found in the Scriptures. Did you know this? There's another gospel that records a genealogy of Jesus, and that's found in the gospel of Matthew.
So, you have Luke and his genealogy of Jesus found in his gospel, but Matthew also records one as well. The interesting thing about Matthew is that he begins his gospel, his record of the life of Jesus, actually with the genealogy. But Luke, as we come to understand, places it here in chapter 3 for a specific reason.
Now, as we consider these two genealogies, I've got to be just straightforward with you. You need to know something: Luke's genealogy differs from but does not contradict Matthew's genealogy. It doesn't take you long to look at these two genealogies and realize that they don't match up one for one.
Now, some people who are not very educated or very discerning look at those differences and say, "There you go! See, look at the gospel writers; they're not in agreement. There's contradiction; it therefore cannot be accurate." But it doesn't take a Bible scholar to pause and to look into ancient history and understand that what Matthew does with his gospel genealogy and what Luke does here—they don't contradict; they just differ.
Some of the ways you'll see them differ is in this way: number one, Matthew's genealogy only goes all the way back to Abraham. Luke's genealogy skips past Abraham and goes all the way back to Adam. So, Matthew's genealogy is shorter; it's got about 44 names, something like that, and Luke's genealogy has over 77 names.
These two genealogies differ, and part of the reason they differ is because Luke's is longer and goes back further. Another place in which they differ—and this is the one that most people point out right away—is you discover that in Matthew's genealogy, it says that Jesus's earthly father is Joseph and that Joseph's earthly father is Jacob. That's what it says in Matthew's genealogy. In Luke's genealogy, it says that Jesus's earthly father is Joseph and that Joseph's earthly father is Heli.
How does that work out? Two different fathers for the same guy? What's going on there? Well, I want to show you something in Luke's gospel that gives us a hint at what's taking place. When you look at verse 23 of Luke's gospel in chapter 3, it says this: "Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about 30 years of age, being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph."
Did any of you notice that when it was being read? Like, that's an interesting thing to say: "as was supposed." So, what's happening here? Are these gospels contradicting one another? No, what they're actually doing—and any reasonable scholar would tell you that this was a valid thing to do, and it actually matches up through other historical records that we have—is it appears that Matthew is tracing the genealogy of Jesus through the legal line of Joseph's family, whereas Luke's gospel is tracing Jesus's line through the line of his mother, Mary.
Now, this would make sense because Matthew's writing to a Jewish audience, and he's trying to show that Jesus had the right to the Davidic kingship, and so he's doing it through the proper legal channels. Versus Luke appears—and this isn't the only explanation, but it's one that I think kind of works the best—he's tracing it through Mary's line and specifically Mary's father.
You might say, "But wait a second! It says that Joseph was the son of Heli, and if Heli was Mary's father, how does that work?" Well, again, there's a very reasonable explanation. In the ancient world, if somebody did not have a son and their daughter married a man, often that father would, guess what, adopt that son-in-law, and it would be recorded then that that was his line, that he was connected to that family.
So, there's a lot of very reasonable explanations even beyond this about some of those differences. But when you look at it, these aren't contradictions; they're differences because Luke is trying to communicate something, and Matthew is trying to communicate something else through these lines.
And that's ultimately what we want to get to today. This is what we want to see: what's the point here, Luke? Is it just that you're trying to validate Jesus? Is it just that you want to do what was historically relevant, or is there something more? I'm here to tell you that there's something more.
When you look at this genealogy, there are a couple of broad truths that hit us smack dab between the eyes if we slow down and consider it. Then there are some very specific truths about Jesus.
The first thing that I want you to see within this genealogy is that, as you read it, you discover—this might seem basic to you, but bear with me—the people of the Bible were real people. The people of the Bible were real people. As you go through this genealogy, Luke goes out of his way in his gospel to write a historical account of the life of Jesus. Included in that is his family tree.
When you read that family tree, church family, you begin to quickly discover names that are in Jesus's family tree that you see written about in your Old Testament—some very familiar names, some very popular names. You come across names like Zerubbabel, who's referenced in the prophets. You see David, King David, is mentioned—King David's father, Jesse. You see Boaz from the story of Boaz and Ruth. You see Judah, you see Jacob, you see Isaac, you see Abraham, you see Noah, you see Enoch—all of these names have stories written about them in the Old Testament, and they're included here in this genealogy.
So, when you read that, don't just rush past it, but let it sit there for a moment with you and realize, "Oh, wait a second! If Luke is a historian trying to show the validity of Jesus's family tree, and the names that are in that family tree are the same names that are in these Old Testament stories, then that means that these were real people."
In fact, there's one name in particular that is, to me, very significant that is included in this line, and I intentionally did not yet mention him. He's the last man mentioned in this genealogy, and that is Adam. Do you see it in there? The very last name mentioned: the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the Son of God.
Adam is recorded in Luke's genealogy. He traces Jesus all the way back to Adam, and that's no small thing. I'll tell you why that's no small thing: because there has been a movement within Christianity over the last, I don't know, I'd say half a century or so to discount the historicity of Adam—that he was an actual real person.
A big reason why people have tried to discount the historicity of Adam is because for those who believe in evolutionary theory, especially if they're a Christian, they say it doesn't match up. We can't trace humanity back to just one single person and get where we are today. There had to be something else going on, so Adam is just this mythical figure that was created by the Jewish people to help explain the creation account.
If that were the case, then why on Earth would somebody like Luke include him in this list? Why would he include Noah? Why would he include Abraham? These weren't just mythical, magical people that were the invention of Old Testament authors to tell good moral stories. These were real historical people, and Luke goes out of his way to ground Jesus in the history of and the reality of their lives.
So, it matters for you and for me that when we read this, we see these names mentioned because it is giving validity to the fact that these are real people. And church, why does that matter? It matters for one simple reason: if the stories of the Bible are not true, why should we believe the teaching or the doctrine of the Bible?
If the stories are not true, why should we believe the teaching or believe the doctrine of the Bible? There's no need to believe the doctrine if the stories are just made up. How can you actually trust it? Instead, though, if they are true, then you should believe it because if the stories are true, the doctrine is true.
Luke is saying that's exactly the case. In fact, it's not just Luke that made that case; Jesus Christ himself, during his earthly ministry, we see in Matthew 19 that he refers to the story of Adam and Eve. In Matthew 23, he refers to the Old Testament story of Cain and Abel. In Matthew 24, Jesus talks about Noah's flood. When he talks about these things, Jesus talks about them as real events.
Why would Jesus do that? Because he wants you to know that not just what he says is true, but what the Scriptures have said from the past are also true. If they're not real, why believe any of it?
But do you see? There's this harmony that exists between the old and the new. There's not one passage in the New Testament; there's not one New Testament author inspired by God who thinks for a moment that these are just stories that are made up.
There's this incredible story that is told about a missionary in Papua New Guinea. He was part of Wycliffe Translators. Wycliffe Translators would go throughout the world, and they would go into tribes and countries and locations where people didn't have a Bible in their own language, and then they would translate the Scriptures.
This specific Bible translator was working with a tribe in Papua New Guinea, and he decided that to help the people hear and learn about Jesus, the first book of the Bible that he would translate into their own language and then read to them was the Gospel of Matthew.
Now, he says here in his account that he thought, "You know what? Matthew's gospel begins with a genealogy, and the last thing I want to do is to translate the Bible with a whole bunch of 'so and so begat so and so begat so and so' because that's not going to help the people understand the gospel."
So, he started to translate the Gospel of Matthew starting in chapter 2. They completed the entire Gospel of Matthew, and he was working with tribesmen to translate it. As they were working together, they finished the Gospel of Matthew, and then he realized, "You know what? Okay, we need to now go and we need to translate chapter one."
He had hoped that as they worked through the gospel up to that point, there would be some questions, and the people would look to know more about Jesus, but there really didn't seem to be that kind of interest. So, they figured out that the word that would be used to translate our English word "to beget"—you know, "so and so begat so and so begat so and so"—and that's what they did.
He worked with those translators, and he says that as we began to work through the translation of "so and so begat so and so begat so and so," one of the tribesmen stopped him and said, "Wait a minute! Are you telling me that these people are real?"
The guy said, "Well, yes." He says, "We do the exact same thing in our culture; we keep a record of people." He says, "They did what we do." Then he asked, "Man, are you telling me that these are real people?" The guy said, "Yes, yes, they are."
Then one of the other tribesmen spoke up and said, "We thought that these were just stories brought by white men to tell us. We didn't know that they were actually true."
So, they went out into the tribe and said, "We're gathering everybody together because what we've been working on, these stories that we've been hearing, they're actually true stories." In front of the entire tribe, they started that night by reading Matthew chapter 1.
That was a turning point, the translator said, in helping the gospel to take root within that village because it simply moved away from being fiction to actually being fact.
So, why do we take time to say we need to believe and know that these stories are true? Because if they're not true, there's no reason to believe it. But the people of the Bible were real people.
So, have confidence as you read this; it helps to validate itself. But as you look at the story of these real people, here's something that we too discover about this genealogy, kind of again pulling back broadly, and that is this: we are all the same.
When you look at this genealogy, you see person after person after person, and you begin to realize they're all the same. You say, "Well, in what way are they the same? In what way are we all the same like them?"
Are you ready? This is going to be the most encouraging three minutes of your life: no one lives forever.
How are we all the same? This story has one person after another person who lives and dies. None of the people in this genealogy are alive today; they're all dead. And guess what? You will be too one day because this is the condition of humanity: we live and we die.
Now, one of you is going to be a smart aleck and say, "But there's one man in the list who never died." I'd say, "You're right; his name is Enoch." Right? In the Old Testament, God took him before he could die. The only reason he didn't die was because God took him before his time.
But every person in this story, they're just like us: we live and we die. Hebrews 9:27 says, "And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment."
See, there's a reason why every single person in this genealogy is no longer with us, and that's very simply this: we're all the same; no one lives forever because we are all sinners. That's why death came to every single individual on this list; it's why death comes to us all.
It's why this is the one family trait that we can all share together because when you look at this list, when you look at these real people, some of them are exceptionally heroic. Some of the people in this list did things that you and I will never be able to hold a candle to. They did things even for the Lord—feats that are truly incredible.
But despite all their heroics, this list is filled top to bottom with men who sinned. I mean, there's Terah in verse 34. Terah was the father of Abraham, and he was an idolater. Abraham, who was his son in verse 34, we see was a liar. Jacob was a cheater and a thief. Judah traded slaves and consorted with prostitutes. David was a murderer and an adulterer. Adam, in his pride, rejected God.
Every single person in this list was a sinner, even those that we'd say, "Well, they were the best of us." The reason why we're all the same, why none of us lives forever, the reason why we're all sinners is because of the very first man in the list: Adam.
In fact, Romans 5:12 really paints a clear picture of this for us. It says this in Romans 5:12: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man"—who is the one man through whom sin entered the world? Adam—and because of sin, it says, "and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned."
Thank you very much, Adam, for passing on such a wonderful family trait to every single one of us. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death. Romans chapter 5 expounds upon it; it lets us know that we all live and we all die.
We're all the same because we trace all of our family trees back to Adam, and Adam was supposed to be the perfect image bearer of God, yet in his sin, failed to do so. And lest any one of us say, "You know what? Adam's the problem. If it wasn't for Adam, we would have been good and fine," I said, "No, you would have done it eventually yourself."
Like the human race, as confronted here within the Scriptures, we have—we're sinners by birth, and then we're sinners by choice. It's the one trait we all carry; it's the one reality that this genealogy points to when it looks at humanity.
And right now, you're thinking, "Boy, I'm glad I lost an hour of sleep to come to church to be so encouraged by the Word of God." In which I said, "Well, this is where the page turns."
Because while up to this point there's not a lot of good things to be addressed in this genealogy, now, though, we come to the heart of it. You see, the purpose of this genealogy is not simply to reveal things about us and our problems. The purpose of this genealogy is to make a point about Jesus.
When you go back to verse 23, you discover that Luke starts this genealogy in a very specific way, and Luke actually places this genealogy in a very specific place. Look at verse 23: "Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about 30 years of age."
Unlike Matthew, Luke does not start his gospel with Jesus's genealogy; he waits. He waits because the first three chapters of Luke's gospel, as I said last week, are all preparatory. They're all making claims about Jesus. It's all about laying a foundation for you and me to understand who Jesus is and what he came to do.
He literally tells us here, he's like, "I'm going to be introducing you to something." Jesus, when he began his ministry—whatever you should think about this genealogy, however you should understand it, you should understand that what Luke has in mind is that the things recorded in this genealogy, the way that he traces Jesus's line, is for the purpose of you understanding the ministry that Jesus came to do.
So, if you ask that question, "What was the ministry that he came to do, and how does this genealogy help us to understand that?" Well, the purpose behind this genealogy becomes abundantly clear.
You see, I made a big deal that every single person in the list of this genealogy was a sinner who lived and died. Yet for all of their struggles, there were men in this genealogy who God, despite the fact that they were sinners and had rebelled against him, there were men in this genealogy that God had given very specific promises to about the offspring that would come from them.
So, when you look at this genealogy, you see that Adam is mentioned, and all the way back in Genesis 3:15, it was said that Adam, through his offspring, God would crush the head of the devil. Then you come to Abraham and Jacob, and God promised both of them that through one of their offspring, all the nations of the earth would experience blessing.
Then you come to Judah, the man who consorted with prostitutes and was involved in the slave trade, yet God promised that through his offspring, God would establish an eternal kingdom. Then you come to David, and God promised David in 2 Samuel 7—we see it in Isaiah 11—that it would be through one of his offspring that the eternal king would come.
Each one of those names that I mentioned is in Jesus's family tree because Jesus is the offspring of every single one of those individuals.
So, why, Luke, are you telling us about these people being a part of Jesus's family? It's for this reason: Luke wants us to know that Jesus had the right to fulfill the promise of God by showing that Jesus was the son of Adam and the son of Abraham and Jacob and Judah and David.
Luke is coming and saying, "Before Jesus begins his ministry, let me just tell you something about him: he's got the right; he's got the credentials. He comes from the line of these individuals whom God made a promise to."
What Luke wants you and me to see as we read this is the recognition: "Oh, the reason why we need to know that Jesus comes from these people is because he was their offspring, and by being their offspring, God could utilize Jesus Christ to fulfill his promises."
Something you've heard me say time and again, and I'll never get tired of saying, is our God is not a liar. Amen? When God makes a promise, he always, always fulfills it.
So, if you're going to understand this genealogy and its significance, it's that God is coming and saying, "Look, Jesus is the promised one." Already in Luke's gospel, he made that point. Already in Luke's gospel, we saw him talking about how Jesus came from David's line. Already in Luke's gospel, we saw him talking about how he came from Abraham's line.
Now here he says, "Let me script it out for you; let me show you exactly how he fulfills these things." But notice, though, there's one person in this genealogy that's significantly different than Matthew's account.
Remember how I said that in Matthew's genealogy, it stopped with Abraham? See, Luke's genealogy pushes through David; he pushes through Judah; he pushes through Jacob and Abraham, and he pushes all the way to Adam.
Do you know why he does that? Do you know why it ends with Adam? In the verse right before the genealogy starts, look at Luke 3:22. We saw this last week. There was a significant event at the start of Jesus's earthly ministry. As Jesus was being baptized by John, we saw last week the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven—the voice of the Father—saying, "You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased."
The Father proclaims it from heaven, and then immediately after that, what does Luke do? He says, "Now let me tell you about Jesus and where he came from and where he traces his family all the way back to."
Actually, the last name on the list of Jesus's genealogy isn't Adam; the last name in the genealogy is who? God.
See, in Luke 22, the Father says, "You're my beloved Son." In Luke's genealogy, he traces it all the way back to Adam, being the Son of God. Why is that important? Because what Luke wants you to see and he wants me to see is that the person who was supposed to be God's representative here on Earth was Adam.
Adam was created to be God's son in the way of reflecting him to creation, but the Scriptures are clear: he failed in doing the task. So, another son, a greater son, had to come so that the promise of God was to ultimately be fulfilled.
We needed—humanity needed—someone to be that perfect beloved Son. So, what's Luke doing? He's saying, "No, let me show you. Not only did God say that Jesus was his beloved Son, but I'm going to show you how he can trace his lineage all the way back."
So, when you go to Romans chapter 5, look at verse 18 of Romans 5. This is why Paul can say what he says: "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men"—that's the trespass of Adam—"so then one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men."
Adam sinned; all fall. Jesus lives the perfect life, makes the perfect sacrifice, and so he's able to atone for humanity and bring life for it. It goes on—not my words, God's words—for as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous.
Look at this now: "The law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Church, it's not just that Jesus Christ had the right to fulfill the promises of God. We know from the rest of the Scriptures what is being proclaimed here: Jesus actually fulfilled the promises of God. He was the son that we should have been, that Adam should have been.
It was his act of righteousness. If he was not truly 100% God and 100% man, he could not have done the ministry that he came to do. But praise God, he did! Luke doesn't want us to miss this.
Jesus is the king promised to David; he's the ruler that he promised to Judah. Jesus is the eternal blessing that he promised to Abraham. He is the Satan-crushing Savior that he promised to Adam.
When you look at the genealogy here, Jesus was not some self-appointed Messiah; he wasn't a misguided reformer; he wasn't caught up in the crowds. Jesus knew from the start of his ministry where he came from, who he came from, and why he was to be who he was.
So, what you have to do is you have to say, "Am I going to accept him at that? Am I going to take him as he is?" Because you can't be who you were supposed to be; I can't be who I was supposed to be. But we don't have to because Jesus was.
Death reigned because of Adam; grace abounds to you and me because of Jesus Christ. Amen?
And now think about this for a minute. Here's one of the things that's so beautiful about this genealogy: if you notice, this genealogy, by going all the way back to Adam and not stopping at Abraham, has a poignant message for us because Jesus didn't just simply come to be the Savior of the Jewish people.
By going all the way back to Adam, we see Jesus as the Savior of all humanity. He comes to make and restore all humanity. Now, just because he lived and he died and he rose from the dead, that doesn't mean that automatically all humanity is forgiven and all things are made pure and clean.
No, no, it's very clear: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved." You want to enter into eternal life? You want to enter into the righteousness that comes to you and to me? The only way that you can experience it is by believing that Jesus was who he said he was, experiencing the grace that's offered through the Father.
Because whoever rejects the Son rejects the Father. So, you want to know this life? You want to know this salvation? Will you have it if you know Jesus as Savior? If you know him as your Lord?
The one thing I love about this genealogy is that it makes very clear just how messed up we are. It lets us know that we're all the same, but it lets us also know that today, church, if you are in Jesus Christ, you are an adopted son and daughter of God because Jesus was the perfect Son.
Let's go to him in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we rejoice today in the truth of your Word that we're not reading fables; we're not reading stories, Lord. We're not looking at things that men have made up, but Lord, we're hearing from you and what you desire for us—how, Lord, you go out of your way to cement the life and the work of Jesus in reality, in time and space.
That just as Adam fell and so his sin spread to all humanity, so too grace, truth, and righteousness can come to us because of the work of one man, Jesus Christ.
And so we're humbled that you would come; we are humbled that you would save. Lord, it is not something that we deserve, but it is something that you give, and that is why we know grace today.
And so, Lord, may we live in light of that grace. For those of us that are in Christ today, Lord, may we live not in fear, not in anxiety, but in the truth that you are with us.
As I pray almost every week, the same power that raised Christ from the dead is the power that has worked within us even now. And so we rejoice in Christ our Savior. It's in his name that we pray.
And all God's people said, "Amen." Amen.
on Mar 11, 2024
