Luke 3:21-38 Sermon for Feb. 1, 2026

When all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized. As he was praying, heaven opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in a physical appearance like a dove. And a voice come from heaven: ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased. As he began his ministry, Jesus was about thirty years old and was thought to be the son of Joseph, son of Heli, son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melchi, son of Jannai, son of Joseph, son of Mattathias, son of Amos, son of Nahum, son of Esli, son of Naggai, son of Maath, son of Mattathias, son of Semein, son of Josech, son of Joda, son of Joanan, son of Rhesa, son of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, son of Neri, son of Melchi, son of Addi, son of Cosam, son of Elmadam, son of Er, son of Joshua, son of Eliezer, son of Jorim, son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Simeon, son of Judah, son of Joseph, son of Jonam, son of Eliakim, son of Melea, son of Menna, son of Mattatha, son of Nathan, son of David, son of David, son of Jesse, son of Obed, son of Boaz, son of Salmon, son of Nahshon, son of Amminadab, son of Ram, son of Hezron, son of Perez, son of Judah, son of Jacob, son of Issac, son of Abraham, son of Terah, son of Nahor, son of Serug, son of Reu, son of Peleg, son of Eber, son of Shelah, son of Cainan, son of Arphaxad, son of Shem, son of Noah, son of Lamech, son of Methuselah, son of Enoch, son of Jared, son of Mahalalel, son of Cainan, son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God. Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve been together! Don’t you love winter? I used to, but now, I’m not so sure. Anyways, it was an absolute pleasure having Pastor Ollie Gray preach for us last week on the first half of Luke 3. Tonight, I’m going to bring us through the second half of Luke 3, which we just read. Now, I mentioned to you on a number of occasions that all Scripture matters. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” That’s all Scripture including ones with genealogies of who was the father of who and so forth. I want to encourage you to not skip over sections like the one we have here. It’s God’s Word to us. God has something to say to us. Take the time to read it, to read it slowly, to read it articulately, and to read it reverently. And feel free to ask God, “What did I just read and why does it matter?” One of the things that’s really helpful when we are dealing with gospel accounts is to read similar gospel accounts side by side. In other words, you have similar stories in Luke that are in Matthew. Read them. Notice the differences. Embrace the differences. Asks hard questions. And…you might receive answers to questions you have when reading an account. What do I mean by that? Well, you might read about Jesus’ baptism here in Luke that sparks a question for you. And you might receive the answer to that question in Matthew because it words something differently for you or goes into further details for you. Approach Scripture diligently. I hope this makes sense. Alright, let’s take a minute and just read verses 21 and 22 again. “When all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized. As he was praying, heaven opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in a physical appearance like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.” This is one of the most beautiful pictures in all of Scripture. Our Savior, Lord, and King is getting baptized. And I want to talk about two things with you. The first thing deals with a question you might have: Why did Jesus need to get baptized if He had no sin to repent of? And the second thing points out the evidence of the Trinity, which we will go into more detail momentarily. So, why did Jesus get baptized? To answer that, I want to go to a similar account of this story found in Matthew. Here’s what it says in Matthew 3:13-15: “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. But John tried to stop him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then John allowed him to be baptized. “Because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” That’s your answer, but what does that mean? Dr. Tony Evans says this: “In his substitutionary death on the cross, Jesus would bear the transgressions of sinners and credit them with her perfect righteousness. So as his ministry began, he intended to identify with sinful humanity on whose behalf he would perfectly fulfill all the demands of God’s law. This baptism would also identify Jesus with John and affirm his kingdom message.” So, you have to remember that Jesus is sinless and he lived a sinless life. This baptism marked the beginning of his earthly ministry; his mission for which He was sent for. He was sent to redeem humanity. He was sent to go to the cross on your behalf. In getting baptized, he is identifying with the humanity he came to save. For you and I, we get baptized AFTER we’ve confessed that Jesus is Lord and Savior and become obedient to Him. And when we are baptized, we are baptized into the righteousness of Christ. So, check this out: In this text, it says, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” So, if you are in Christ by faith, you too, are pleasing to the Father since the righteousness of Jesus is lavished on you once and for all. That is how you and I can have a Father who can be pleased with you. And that is the only way we can have a Father who is pleased with you. When you are in Christ by faith alone. Not by anything you can do. And some of you need to hear that. Some of you need to be reminded of this glorious truth as well as the hard truth and the hard truth is that if we are in Christ, we are living in obedience to Him. There are so many Christians not living in obedience to Jesus and that needs to change. The second thing I want to point out here is the beautiful illustration of the Trinity. You got the Son getting baptized. You got the Holy Spirit descending like the dove. And you’ve got the Father saying, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.” To say that there is not Trinity in the Bible is nonsense. To challenge the idea that Jesus is not God is nonsense. It’s all right there and in numerous other places. We just need to open our eyes and read. But then there is this idea that when we read the Bible, we need the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds to what is there. You ever wonder how two people can read the same Bible and not see the same thing? That’s because the Holy Spirit is in one and not the other. Now, let’s get to everyone’s favorite part of our passage here and that’s the genealogy of Jesus. We’ll find that in verses 23-38. I’m not going to read all of that again. But, before we move forward, what’s the point of genealogies in the Bible? To make it short, simple, and a little modern, it’s basically a resume. And in the Old Testament through parts of the New, genealogies did a few things: They proved who was Jewish and who wasn’t. This was important because God’s covenants were made with Israel. The promise of a deliverer was a promise made to Israel, and he would come from Israel. Genealogies also proved who could serve as priests. Only Levites could do so. Look at Nehemiah 7:64. After exile, many people returned and genealogies were used to determine who could serve in the temple. It says, “These searched for their entries in the genealogical records, but they could not be found, so they were disqualified from the priesthood.” The next thing genealogies did was proved who was a “Son of David.” This genealogy had to prove that anyone claiming to be the Messiah was not descended from David through Jeconiah since God declared that no one from Jeconiah’s house would sit on David’s throne. Ok, so you have several reasons for genealogies and one a big one was to fact check and test anyone claiming to be the Messiah that Israel was waiting for. Here, Jesus is that Messiah and we have a genealogy that proves it. But, we’ve got a problem! There’s also a genealogy in Matthew and the one in Matthew differs greatly than the one in Luke! Uh oh! What are we to do with this? I want to deal with this because this is a pretty well known “discrepancy” used by atheists to discredit the Bible and you need to know how to contend for the faith. First, let’s find a common ground between the two: Both Matthew and Luke confirm that he was a descendent of David, which makes Jesus a legitimate Messiah. This is really important for us as we discovered earlier in the purposes that genealogies serve. Here’s is where they differ: Matthew follows the line of David’s son, Solomon. Luke follows the line of Nathan, another son of David. This results in two different genealogies. So, some will argue that one of them got it wrong, putting a massive dent into the Bible’s claim that it’s inerrant and infallible. Is there a way to account for the two then? Yes, there is. While there are certainly a few explanations, some of them have holes in it that don’t quite satisfy, so I’ll give you my position on the matter. Let’s go to verse 23 where we meet a man by the name of Heli. It says, “As he began his ministry, Jesus was about thirty years old and was thought to be the son of Joseph, the son of Heli.” So, here, Heli is the father of Joseph. In Matthew the father of Joseph is Jacob (1:16). So, what the heck is going on? Two ideas that reconcile all of this: First, Joseph had two fathers. Hang with me there. I’m going to suggest that Mary had no brothers to carry on her father’s name at their marriage, so Heli adopted Joseph as his own son. Thus, this would make it a legal genealogy. And if you don’t like that, let’s talk about Deuteronomy 25:5 where it says, “When brothers live on the same property and one of them dies without a son, the wife of the dead man may not marry a stranger outside the family. Her brother-in-law is to take her as his wife, have sexual relations with her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law for her.” Thank God that doesn’t apply today. Anyways, I can also suggest that Heli and Jacob were actually brothers or half-brothers. When one died, the other married his widow, producing Joseph and his offspring. That would leave Joseph with a biological father AND a legal father, producing two legitimate and legal genealogies. This is just food for thought and an honorable way to reconcile the so-called discrepancies in Scripture. I want to share all of this because, especially with our kids, it’s important to help them think through these critical areas of Scripture. We don’t want to just share the what. We also want to share the Why so that our kids can own the faith. One last thing and I’ll wrap up with a big take-away from all this: I find it interesting that in Luke’s genealogy, the phrase “son of” is used precisely 77 times which signals ultimate completion that we find in Jesus. So, even though Matthew’s genealogy starts with Abraham and goes forward, Luke’s genealogy starts with Jesus and goes backwards all the way to ADAM! Why? Well, Jesus would be the one who succeeds where Adam fails. 1 Corinthians 15:45 says, “So it is written, The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a live-giving spirit.” As I now conclude this message, I want to say this: this all matters because through thousand of years in this genealogy of Jesus, God has been faithful to keep His promise to rescue you and I. It matters because Jesus really is the Messiah that we’ve been waiting for and we want to do all we can to share this Messiah and what He has done with the world! You look at this genealogy and through all the historical turmoil, exile, deportations, and more, God has been at work the entire time. In your life, when things are going hectic and it’s hard to see God at work, please know that God is indeed at work in your life.