21 When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened.
22 And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, "You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased."
23 Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli,
24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Janna, the son of Joseph,
25 the son of Mattathiah, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai,
26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathiah, the son of Semei, the son of Joseph, the son of Judah,
27 the son of Joannas, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri,
28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmodam, the son of Er,
29 the son of Jose, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi,
30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonan, the son of Eliakim,
31 the son of Melea, the son of Menan, the son of Mattathah, the son of Nathan, the son of David,
32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon,
33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah,
34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,
35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah,
36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,
37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Cainan,
38 the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Over 700 years passed between that heartfelt plea of the prophet to God, and it's answer. But in the verses we have just read we see that in the fullness of time, the heavens were opened.

In the person of Jesus Christ, God did come down to earth to dwell with His people, and because of the work he did during that time on our behalf, the heavens were forever opened to all who believe in Him. Now Saved by our Redeemer, who was willing to humble himself, with an infinite stoop by which he left the glory of heaven for us, and accepted humiliation and death, the way is open for us to enter into the very heaven he left, and dwell eternally with our father.

In just two verses, 21 & 22 Luke summarizes an incredibly important event in the life of Jesus – the beginning of Christ's public ministry. The time is now right for Jesus to begin the work for which He was born. But before Jesus can begin, He first goes to John to Baptized.

I ask that question because it doesn't seem to make sense does it? We've already read in chapter 3 that John's baptism was connected with repentance. In other words, the people who came to John to be baptized, did so admitting that they were sinners, in need of salvation, and who were sorry and genuinely repentant for their sins – and you all know what sin is from the Catechism question.

And yet Jesus comes to him to be Baptized. Jesus, the Messiah, the only begotten Son of God, who was born without the stain of original sin, and who has been perfectly faithful to the Law of God in all it's particulars, comes to John and asks to be baptized. John's answer to this request of Jesus is given in Matthew 3:14. And John tried to prevent Him, saying, "I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?"

John is incredulous! When the supposedly righteous, the Pharisees and Saducees came to him to be baptized he saw right through them. The Prophet knew that their outward show of righteousness didn't spring from a heart that was right with God and was in fact merely filthy rags, so he condemned them for their hypocrissy. But when Jesus comes to Him, John knows through the instruction of the Holy Spirit that this is the Messiah - John points out Jesus to his disciples the next day and says of Him "Behold the Lamb of God!" in John 1:36. He also knows that Jesus has no sins of His own to repent of.

It's worth noting briefly here the difference between appearance and reality in spiritual matters, and the need to be spiritual discerning. John is able to look at the religious authorities, the Pharisees and Saducees who were the spiritual and political leaders of the Jewish people, and then this lowly and humble Galileean carpenter, Jesus, and to know that they are spiritual counterfeits and Christ is the real thing. But in the same situation, would we have been able to do so? Too often I believe in religious matters we are taken in by outward appearances, and we can even fool ourselves. [Ebeneezer Erskine conversion example] Let us remember that God looks upon the heart, not the outward appearance, and to the extent to which we are able, we should do the same.

In fact, John takes one look at Jesus and knowing his own sins and need of forgiveness says to Him "I NEED TO BE BAPTIZED BY YOU AND YOU ARE COMING TO ME?" How can I, a sinner, baptize the sinless one? How can I whom a merely the minister, baptize the one in whose name I am ministering?

Now, if some of the blasphemous liberal theories about Christ were true, it is at this point that Jesus would have said, [Hippy voice] "No, no, man, you've got it all wrong, I'm just like this wandering mystic sage. I'm a sinner just like you, so don't get all uptight, dude, it's cool. Oh and by the way, Consider the Lillies. Know what I mean?"

But that isn't what Jesus says, he answers John: "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." (Matthew 3:15)

In other words, Jesus says, yes, it's true, this would seem to be a reversal of the correct order of things. But, it has to be this way, in order for all righteousness to be fulfilled.

By doing this thing, Jesus is doing the work of redemption.

1) Because He is now functioning as the Substitute and Representative of those he has come to redeem. He is even now looking forward to Golgotha and His crucifixion. They are guilty, He is sinless, but now in this baptism He inextricably associates himself with them. He undergoes this humiliation on their behalf as their representative.

2) He did it as what scripture calls the firstfruits, in other words he set the Divine pattern for all His Spiritual children who would come after Him. Paul says commenting on Christ's resurrection: "But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming." (1 Cor. 15:23) Christ sets the pattern and we follow after Him, He was Baptized, and we who are His must be as well.

[Note: Ministers, pattern must be DO and TEACH]

This then is the moment at which Christ formally embarks upon his work of redemption, in which he will take upon Himself the sins of all His sheep and suffer in their stead. Jesus is accepting His mission, and beginning to walk that road that will take Him to Calvary.

It is fitting then, that at this moment, He was praying. In fact as we go through Luke you will find that as we go through Luke, Jesus is in prayer at all the most critical points in His ministry – this too should be the pattern for your lives, but all to often, Prayer is something that you only reserve for those moments when you have nothing better to do. In the midst of the crisis, you seem to figure that you are better served by running around like chickens with your heads cut off, than calling out to your heavenly Father who has promised He will hear you for assistance. It is not for nothing that James said of believers just like you: "Yet you do not have because you do not ask."

Also, let us note that all of our ordinances should be accompanied with Prayer. We must call upon the Lord who is the true source of grace behind both the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper to bless them.

As Jesus was praying at that moment of the initiation of His ministry, the Heavens are opened and God the Father answers His Son. Those of you who are thinking "Man I wish I got a response like that when I pray" should remember that you already have. Prayer is a divine dialogue, you speak to God in prayer, and He speaks to you through His Word. The problem is that too many Christians figuratively are doing this [put fingers in ears] by never reading that living Word that God speaks to us through. [TELEPHONE EXAMPLE]

The Second thing I want us to look at this morning is what happened when the Heavens where opened, at the Baptism of Christ. We read two things:

1) God, The Holy Spirit, assumed the bodily appearance of a Dove and descended upon Christ

2) God, the Father spoke saying "YOU ARE MY BELOVED SON; IN YOU I AM VERY WELL PLEASED"

John had been told that this descent of the Holy Spirit would be the confirmation that the one upon whom He descended was the promised Messiah, so in this we say God stamping His Divine Seal upon Jesus, declaring to John and through Him to all the World. "This is my Beloved Son whom I promised I would send" and accordingly as we are told in in John 1:34 from that time on John began to openly declare that Jesus was the Son of God. No longer was John preaching the imminent revealing of God's Messiah, now He was preaching that God's Messiah was here, and that his name was Jesus. We see here the great transition between Old and New Testament periods.

No longer is it repent and believe in the promised and coming Redeemer, the Messiah who will be God with Us in order to be Saved. It is now repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ – who is that promised and now come Redeemer, the Messiah, God with Us, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

You can almost skip over it but you also see here one of the strongest testimonies in the Bible to the doctrine of the Trinity. Here you have all three members of the Godhead – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, present as distinct persons. It clearly can't be that there is only the Father who sometimes appears as the Spirit or the Son. Rather, you have here all three members present and functioning as individuals, yet all part of the same triune Godhead. Yes, we may not be able to fully comprehend, that is fully understand in its totality, how as the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it "There are three persons in the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory." And yet we can apprehend it, that is recognize it as a truth taught in scripture.

The fact that the Spirit descends upon Christ here doesn't mean that previously Jesus wasn't already filled with with Holy Spirit, rather it is now a matter of his being officially given the gifts necessary to fulfill His mission as the Messiah.

God the Father, then gives the final confirmation to the word of what the opening of the heavens and descent of the Spirit have already revealed, that Jesus is in fact His Beloved Son. This doesn't mean that at that moment Jesus, became His Son, but that rather God was declaring to all the World that His only begotten eternal Son, the one who had always been the second member of the Godhead from all eternity, had now appeared on earth, just as had been promised, and that His name was Jesus.

God the Father then declares that He is well pleased in Him. And that too has both an eternal and temporal sense. God, the Father has always been well-pleased with God the Son, but God the Father is also well-pleased with him, because Christ has for 30 years been living a life of perfect obedience to Him. You may be thinking to yourself, well what's the big deal about that? Well not much, Just that Jesus was the only person in History before or after this point to ever do it!

God the Father is also well pleased, because Christ has voluntarily begun his mission in the Covenant of Redemption [explain the Covenant of Redemption] and as we began by saying, now through His work Heaven is being opened to all those whom the Father "predestined …to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will"

Finally, the third of the three things I wanted us to look at is the Genealogy of Christ given in verses 23-38 Now why is this important? I ask that question knowing all to well that the tendency whenever you hit a genealogy in the Bible is to go [make page flipping gesture]. Very few people respond to lists of foreign and in some cases unpronounceable names with excitement, but the fact is that these names are in the bible for a reason and in this case for two very important reasons.

The first is that Luke wants to show that in accordance with all the promises and prophecies in the Old Testament, the Messiah is indeed a descendent of King David. That is why later on we will see a blind man calling out to Jesus saying "Jesus, Son of David, heave mercy on me!"

There is an amazing testimony to the providence of God in safeguarding his plan of redemption here. God announces that the Messiah will be a descendent of David, and then time after time we see the line of David almost wiped out. The most notable examples being when the wicked Queen Athaliah killed all of her grandson's in an attempt to ensure that she and not they would reign over Israel – except for one Son, Joash whom the High Priest hid away in the temple until the time came for the uprising that would restore this descendent of David to the throne. And then again during the time of the exile in Babylon the descendents of David could very easily have been wiped out, had not God safeguarded their line and sent back Zerubabel. These "end-runs" of the Devil are thwarted at every turn, so the wicked can never prevail against the plan of God. To use Christ's own words "I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." (Mat. 16:18)

The second reason is because it shows Christ's descent from Adam, Christ was very God of very God, and yet he was truly man as well, he has this unity with all mankind that was essential to his work of redemption. He was the Second Adam, who would restore mankind after His fall in the first. Christ was truly the "seed of the woman" that is Eve who was prophesied in Genesis 3:15. This is the seed whom God had foretold would crush the head of the serpent. And it was to accomplish this mission foretold even from the time of the fall, that the events we just read took place.

Let me finally note one last thing about this Genealogy, of all the names in it with the exception of Jesus and God have something else in common. Good and Bad, mighty or lowly, they are all dead. You should not be able to read this table without reflecting that someday the same fate that befell them will befall you as well. And so that too is a reason why it might be in the Bible, to remind you this very day that "it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment"

Death you cannot escape, but I can tell you for certain, that Jesus came into this world to ensure that all who believe in Him would escape the eternal wrath connected with the Judgement.