JUST JESUS: CHAPTER BY CHAPTER THRU LUKE
PLEASING GOD
LUKE 3:21-22
#JustJesus
INTRODUCTION… What pleases me? (p)
Because of one of the words in today’s passage in Luke 3, I was thinking about the things in life that “please” me. What are those things that give me satisfaction or a sense of achievement or gladness? That is what “pleased” means, “feeling pleasure or satisfaction.” What pleases me?
* The first five minutes of getting in bed when the sheets are clean and fresh.
* The day when I know a new episode of Star Trek comes out.
* A really good double cheese burger with lettuce, tomato, and fresh jalapenos.
* The sound of all three of my kids laughing.
What are the things that please you?
I also thought of:
* When someone tailgates me and then drives around me and then has to stop at the light.
* 0-degree weather where it hurts to breathe in the air.
* A freshly mowed and trimmed yard.
What are the things that please you?
This morning we are going to be in Luke 3, eventually, but this passage is one that is described in all four Gospels and so I want to make sure even though we are focusing on one passage that we get all four perspectives about this one event. We have four Gospels for a reason. So, we will read briefly from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but then we will settle in Luke.
READ MATTHEW 3:13-17 (ESV)
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately He went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him; 17 and behold, a Voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased.”
The Gospel of Mark records the same event as does Luke:
READ MARK 1:9-11 (ESV)
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when He came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. 11 And a Voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.”
LUKE 3:21-22 (ESV)
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form, like a dove; and a Voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.”
John of course has to be different, but he too records the baptism of Jesus which is what the passage we are focusing on is all about:
READ JOHN 1:29-34 (ESV)
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward Him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is He of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who ranks before me, because He was before Me.’ 31 I myself did not know Him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that He might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on Him. 33 I myself did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is He Who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
TRANSITION
The baptism of Jesus is one of the first events we see when Jesus arrives on the scene as an adult and is ready for His three-year walkabout ministry preaching and teaching. What do we find in this passage?
GOD IN THREE PERSONS
The verses that we read this morning first share with us about the nature of God which I think is quite complicated. We serve a God who is Eternal, Uncompromisingly Holy, All-Powerful, All Knowing, Awesomely Gracious, Unconditionally Loving, and Creator of All that Exists. He is more than we can imagine. He is Other and unlike any being of which we can conceive. To think that our created finite minds could even begin to comprehend Him, is a little presumptuous. We are fortunate on this point. God has seen fit to reveal some of Himself to us that we might know Him. All that we know about God He has revealed to us.
In Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, and John 1, we find God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit all expressed and manifest in one place and at one time. God is a Being that is a community unto Himself. My friend Brian often says that God is a “community of submissive love.”
ILLUSTRATION… Quote, ‘Urban Legends of Theology,’ Wittmer, page 53
Kristian and I are reading a book together entitled “Urban Legends of Theology” (2023) in which the author says about God that He is “three divine persons Who live in a fellowship of self-giving love.”
God is expressed this way in this passage and I believe this is quite unique in Scripture because this passage tells us some about the nature of God. For the sake of our sanity, we are not going to look at all of the passages at once, but rather we will look just at the two verses in Luke 3:
RE-READ LUKE 3:21-22 (ESV)
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form, like a dove; and a Voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.”
Let us take a look at God in the order of His appearance in these particular verses and the purposes for which He appeared.
JESUS CHRIST THE SON
First, we have Jesus Christ the Son. Who is Jesus? Jesus Christ the Son is the fully God and fully human Messiah. Messiah means “promised one.” The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John describe His angel-announced miraculous birth, His sinless life, His teaching ministry, and His unwarranted willing death. Jesus lived in Nazareth and He lived there until He began His ministry at about thirty years old. Jesus taught crowds and more specifically His disciples about how God wanted them to pursue a holy relationship with Him in this life. Jesus also did miracles that attested to His identity as the Messiah. Jesus Christ willingly died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins which was His divine purpose on this Earth. Faith in Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, as our Lord and as our Savior is the absolute center of our faith as Christians. That is a simplistic summary of Jesus.
Neither John the Baptist nor Jesus invented baptism which is immersion under water, but at this time, baptism was the immersion of a person underwater to signify the confession of sin and a fresh start with God. It was a spiritual cleansing act that made a person ceremonially clean before God in view of all the laws in the Old Testament. After the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christian baptism is the immersion of a person in water to signify their faith in Jesus Christ, repentance from sin, and it is in baptism that one receives the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). As in all things, Jesus added a layer of importance and meaning to what was already described in the Bible.
There are two main reasons for Jesus’ baptism:
First, in this particular passage, we find Jesus Christ the Son being baptized, not because He had sin to confess or sin to be made right, but He did so because it was “proper” and it “fulfill[ed] all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). Jesus is showing us by His example what we should do to follow Him. Baptism is a public profession that is part of life with God. It is part of being one of God’s people.
Second, Luke 3:23 adds right after the baptism, “Jesus, when He began His ministry, was about thirty years of age,” (3:23, ESV). Jesus’ baptism was the watershed event (pun intended) that began Jesus’ public life in ministry. Jesus’ baptism was the springboard into the pool (pun intended) of life of service, teaching, miracles, and accomplishing the divine purposes for which He came. Once baptized, Jesus Christ was all in on being a teacher, prophet, priest, and Savior. All this officially began in a very public way at His baptism.
HOLY SPIRIT / SPIRIT OF GOD
Second, appearing in this brief passage is the Holy Spirit. If you like reading the KJV, He is called the “Holy Ghost.” You may also see words in various translations such as “the Spirit of God” or “the Spirit of the Lord” which are also used. The Holy Spirit is the active spirit of God which interacts with His Creation and His people.
We read about the Holy Spirit from the very beginning for in Genesis 1 the Bible says:
READ GENESIS 1:1-2 (ESV)
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
The Holy Spirit was recognized in Joseph by Pharaoh in Genesis 41:38 which gave him the ability to interpret dreams. The craftsmen who made the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus 31 were filled with the Spirit (31:3, 35:31). Othniel (Judges 3), Gideon (Judges 6), Jephthah (Judges 11), and Samson (Judges 13-15) all had the Holy Spirit come on them which gave them divine ability to make war, lead people, and also gave physical strength. The presence of the Holy Spirit enabled King Saul to prophesy and rule God’s people (1 Samuel 10:10, 19:20). The Holy Spirit came on many prophets in the Old Testament and allowed them to speak the Word of God boldly (2 Chronicles 15:1, 2 Chronicles 24:20, Ezekiel 11:24). And all of that was just in the Old Testament.
In this particular passage in the New Testament, we find the Spirit of God adding a stamp of approval on Jesus Christ as the Son. The Holy Spirit “descended on Him in bodily form, like a dove.” The Holy Spirit was visible in this way and was manifested so that those watching could literally and physically see God’s stamp of approval on the Son. Literally, the sky opened and divine light shone upon Jesus.
What was the purpose of the Holy Spirit lighting on Jesus? I believe this lighting of the Spirit on Jesus was a mark of authority for Jesus. Everything He would do and teach is given by God and has His authority to do it. Jesus’ Ministry has the authority of God with it.
GOD THE FATHER
In Luke 3 we find Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father all expressed and manifest in one place and at one time. We now come to the portion of the passage where God the Father steps in and makes Himself manifest. He is the Voice. God created the Heavens and the Earth. God made a covenant with Abraham. God led His people out of Egypt and provided the Promised Land for them. God sent angels to save servants from burning furnaces and to shut the mouths of lions. God spoke through prophets to His people. All of that and more were just in the Old Testament.
In this particular passage, we find God the Father speaking audibly in a “Voice [that] came from heaven.” I imagine based on Job 40:9, Isaiah 33:3, Jeremiah 25:30, and Joel 3:16 that when God speaks audibly in this manner that His voice sounds like thunder. I also know that for Elijah in 1 Kings 19 God’s voice was a whisper. I imagine based on Revelation 1 and 14 that His voice also sounds like rushing water in some way. We can only imagine what His voice must be like. We know it is awesome and unique and powerful and personal and unlike anything we have heard because in Acts 9:7 it says:
READ ACTS 9:7 (ESV)
The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.
Those that were with Saul heard God’s voice audibly and they were speechless!
What was the purpose of God the Father audibly speaking to Jesus and about Jesus? God’s words echo and are a mash-up of Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1 which are Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah that He would be the Son of God and that He would be a Suffering Servant. God’s words were specific. What we see here is God formally commissioning Jesus to go forth and be His Son. Jesus will be God’s representative amongst all of those He lives with, heals, ministers to, and teaches. Jesus was certainly already God’s Son, but this was God the Father’s way of formally sending Jesus out for His good purposes.
TRANSITION
As we look in Luke 3, I think the focus is definitely on what God says. God the Father and the Holy Spirit both, in a demonstrative way, claim Jesus as the Son. They point out His identity.
IDENTITY
The verses that we read this morning share with us about the identity and the nature of Jesus of Nazareth Himself. When God the Father speaks from Heaven, He specifically calls Jesus “My Son.” What does that mean? Is that significant? What does it mean that God has a Son?
Let us read from a few other additional passages in the Gospels to get some perspective:
READ LUKE 1:35 (ESV)
“And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the Child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”
READ JOHN 1:18 (ESV)
“No one has ever seen God; the only God, Who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known.”
READ JOHN 5:18 (ESV)
“This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”
READ JOHN 10:30 (ESV)
“I and the Father are one."
READ JOHN 10:37-38 (ESV)
“If I am not doing the works of My Father, then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me and I am in the Father.”
All of these passages tell us that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He is made of the “same stuff” as God the Father and God the Spirit. Jesus is claiming to be a “chip off the old block.” I don’t want to get too technical, but there is a specific word that the Early Church used to explain their understanding of who Jesus was and is. They used a Greek term [“Homoousios” (homo-ooo-see-oss)] that means "of the same substance." God and Jesus were of the same substance, or in other words, were of the same being. They used this term because:
#1 There were some people that believed that Jesus was just another created human being like us
#2 There were some people taught Jesus was not God, but something in between God & an angel
#3 There were some people that believed Jesus, even though He was made of the same substance, was not the same God as the God of the Old Testament
All three of these are false teachings. You might think that it is not necessary to go over the Truth that Jesus is God’s Son and what that means, but there were false teachings then and there are the same false teachings now. We find those false teachings today in religions like Jehovah Witnesses or Mormonism and those folks might be our neighbors and we need to know they do not believe the same as we. They claim to be Christians and yet have a fundamentally different belief about Jesus’ identity. Jesus is God. He is God.
ILLUSTRATION… (Nicene Creed, http://www.theopedia.com/nicene-creed)
We believe, as the Early Church believed, in basic normal Christian doctrine which was expressed in something called the Nicene Creed. I know we do not use creeds in our church, but nevertheless, this creed explains well what normal Christian belief is about the identity of Jesus Christ:
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary and became truly human.”
TRANSITION
As I was going over this passage, it was the last word of the passage, “pleased” that just kept grabbing my attention. It is why at the beginning I talked about things or situations that are pleasing to me.
I thought of more things that please me:
* A fresh pair of socks
* Any song by Chris Tomlin
* Writing stories and collecting sermons into books that can help folks
* Learning something new
In my opinion, one of the inevitable questions we find in this passage is: What pleases God?
APPLICATION: PLEASING GOD
God’s voice thundering from Heaven says that God loves Jesus and He is pleased with Him. Again, it is the second part of that which grabs my attention because I immediately want to know… How I can please God? I want to know how you can please God! I want to know how our church can please God!
God says He is pleased with Jesus. I take that to mean that God has been pleased with Jesus thus far from when He was born until His baptism. I take that to mean God is pleased with Jesus in coming to John the Baptist and being baptized and fulfilling righteousness. I also take that to mean that God is pleased in everything Jesus is about to say, every place He goes, everything He does, all the healings and the miracles, and all that He is about to teach.
You see everything that Jesus Christ did was an extension of God. Every single time Jesus taught it is what God wanted to say. Every decision Jesus made is the decision that God wanted Him to make. Jesus Christ was constantly and unwaveringly consistent in representing God and being God on Earth. God was most pleased that when the time came, Jesus would die on the cross and satisfy the debt of sin so that we might be saved. All of that comes from consistency and it pleased God. Jesus never shrunk back from what He was supposed to do (Hebrews 10:37-38).
I was studying the word “pleased” in the New Testament and I came across a passage in Colossians which I believe is helpful for us in answering the question: “How can we please God?” The Apostle Paul said in Colossians 1:
READ COLOSSIANS 1:19-20 (ESV)
“For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.”
Jesus Christ was constantly and unwaveringly consistent in representing God and this pleases God. God might be complicated as Three Persons, but He is not complicated in what pleases Him. The same thing that pleased God about Jesus is what pleases Him about us.
I could not help but notice in Colossians 1 that Paul mentions one specific area that obviously pleases God and it ties into how Jesus represented Him. God was pleased because Jesus reconciled people to Him. Jesus was all about His Father’s business in bringing wholeness and forgiveness and helping people in their relationship with Him to reconnect with Him. The same truth is expressed in Romans 5:11 and 2 Corinthians 5:18-19.
It occurred to me: reconciling people to God pleases Him.
If you and I want to please God, we must make a great effort to help others find and follow Jesus. In helping people find Jesus and follow Jesus, we are participating in the ministry of reconciliation that 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 describes and this pleases God.
* God wants us to share our faith with everyone we come across and this pleases Him.
* God wants us to pray with people who are hurting and this pleases Him.
* God wants us to have spiritual conversations that lead people to Christ and this pleases Him.
* God wants us to represent Him as a believer so that non-believers turn to Him; this pleases Him.
* God wants us to forgive others which shows His grace and this pleases Him.
CHALLENGE: Our challenge is to be about reconciling people to God like Jesus and with this God is well pleased.
PRAYER
INVITATION
