May 3, 2026 - The Gospel of Luke - Week 2 - Rising Expectations

Highland Christian Church - Asheville, NC

Communicator - Jason Garris

Luke 3:1-20 - "Everyone was expecting the Messiah to come soon…" Everyone is looking for a Savior—but not everyone is ready for the real one.

Transcript

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These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. It can happen to all of us. You can have a gym membership, you can wear the Nike Tech clothes, you can talk about fitness, you can have every fitness app on your phone, and never actually get healthy. You can. You can open up your phone on your Bi You can open up your phone to the Bible app. But just because the app is open, it doesn't mean your heart is open. There's a danger. And you and I have to pay attention to this. Well, welcome in everyone. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the pastors at Highland Christian Church. And on behalf of our team, I just wanted to say thanks for taking some time to journey with us through the scripture. Our hope is that these words would cause you to think carefully about this Jesus we proclaim and that you would choose to trust him in your day-to-day. And as always, if you're in the Asheville area, whether you live here or you're visiting, we'd love for you to come join us at the corner of Livingston and Depot Street in person at the Dr. Wesley Grant Senior Southside Center. Our prayer is that God's words would equip you for every good work that He's prepared for you to do today. So we get to talk about a little bit of fun stuff this morning, uh conspiracy theories, uh, and that that type of fun stuff that everybody loves to think about and dig deep down into those wells on the internet. Um but before we jump into Luke chapter three, uh, we're gonna speculate together about the lost years of Jesus. Because Luke jumps in um after the Christmas stories of Luke 1 and 2, which we spent some time on uh during Christmas, we're gonna be looking into Luke 3, but there is a section that I thought would be fun to talk about. Um there are lots of legends when it comes to uh Jesus' years before 30. Uh, there's the uh idea that maybe he went with his uncle around the world and sold stuff, which is one out there. Uh there's also another one where he went to India and trained with some spiritual gurus. Uh, there's another one called the Infancy Gospel, where Jesus supposedly started preaching as a baby. Kind of weird. Uh, but again, all of that stuff, many of those teachings were written hundreds, hundreds of years after Jesus to portray Jesus as something other. Uh, but it's kind of like today, when a celebrity disappears for a moment, everybody likes to fill in the silence, right? It shows something that we, that, that the fake gospels exist because human curiosity exists, right? We hate silence, so we try to fill in the gaps and we come up with all of these thoughts and ideas because people really want to know what happens between the manger and 30. So, what do we know? Matthew tells us uh that King Herod ordered the killing of all children under the age of two because he was so jealous of another king potentially coming up, right? And so what is Joseph is warned in a dream, and they flee to Egypt. So Jesus and his family actually lived in Egypt for a couple of years. Egyptian Christians are incredibly proud of the time that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus spent time in their country. It's a fascinating story and connection to the gospel. So, about after two years, there, uh after another warning, Joseph doesn't go back to where they're from, and he goes to Nazareth. And in doing so, he fulfills some prophecy that the Messiah would come from Nazareth. He records in Luke chapter 2, verse 40, then the child grew up healthy and strong. He was filled with wisdom, God's favor was on him. All right. We get one more glimpse of Jesus before the age of 30, and it was around 12 years old. His parents lose him for three days. Imagine that conversation between Mary and Joseph. Like, you're telling God. No, you're telling God. No, you're telling you lost him. You were on, you were supposed to be now, but anyways, they finally find him in the temple. He's listening to the teachers, he's asking questions. People are kind of amazed at the insight that he's giving. But then Luke closes the gap like this in verse 51. He says, Then he, Jesus, returned to Nazareth with his parents and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart, and Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people. People love to speculate about the lost years of Jesus, but Luke doesn't. No secret travels, no hidden training, and I'm sorry to tell you, there are no lost years of Jesus. There are no records because no one would have cared. No one would have cared about a little poor kid and a poor family living in Nazareth. Luke tells us something better than all the speculation. Jesus grew up ordinary, obeying his parents, obscure, in poverty among us. It looked normal. The incarnation was normal. Jesus wasn't walking around in some Iron Man suit, some space suit, some some kind of a way that said, I'm Jesus, I'm the Messiah. No, he obeyed his parents. You know, in fact, there are many arguments, especially in the Muslim faith, that Jesus couldn't have been God because it was so incredibly normal. He ate food. He came as a baby, he went to the bathroom. God can't do those things. It's funny that a human being tells God what he can and can't do, but regardless, the point is, the incarnation, incredibly normal. While Jesus may have been sinless, it doesn't mean he wasn't ordinary. All of the gospels and the mystic gospels and all the ideas of fantasizing about Jesus as a teenager and all of that came hundreds of years after Jesus. Because during the window of time, no one would have cared. He was a man of no reputation, nothing to look at. He would have been like you going into your high school and being like seeing somebody many, many, many, many years later famous, being like, that kid, that kid used to sit behind me in math class and like eat his boogers and stuff. Right? There are no lost years of Jesus. And it's why so many locals reject him. That's why we'll see that through Luke's gospel. So Luke opens in chapter 3 with a flood of details. And I'm gonna read it, and it's gonna be like eyes rolling back type of stuff, but here we go. It was now the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius, the Roman Emperor. Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea, Herod Antipas was ruler over Galilee, his brother Philip was ruler over Aeturia and Tyronidas, Lysanius was ruler over Abilene, and Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests. At this time, a message from God came to John, son of Zechariah, who was living in the wilderness. That is a lot of details. That is nearly 20 unnecessary details unless it's true. See, if you want to perpetuate a lie, stay vague, right? Luke could have just said, in the time, in this time, a message of the word, a message from the Lord came to John, but he didn't. He actually gives you all of these things: Roman rulers, governors, Jewish authorities, priests in charge, overlapping, comparent connections. It's over the top. It's like if you were to sit in a court and someone were to say, somewhere, at some time, something happened to somebody, the jury would be like, uh, not guilty. I don't know. I don't know anything. How am I supposed to trust what you're saying? You gave zero details. But instead, if someone were to say Tuesday at 3 p.m. on Patton Avenue in front of me and my kids at cookout, now you begin to have some weight to your story. Luke gives details so people will know what we're talking about happened in history. You can go and check the times, okay? And then he says, at this time, a message from God came to John. We've talked about this before, but it's fascinating. The end of Malachi to Jesus' time on earth, 400 years of silence from God. No words to the prophets, no nothing to the people. I mean, can you imagine your phone being silent for 40 minutes? Some of you? What's wrong with this thing? Is it not working? Am I not popular? I'm getting no notifications. What's up with this? For 400 years, nothing. And so John now, Luke is saying, he's that voice. Something is coming. Something is changing. And in verse 3, he gives this description. Then John went from place to place on both sides of the Jordan River, preaching that people should be baptized to show they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven. Isaiah had spoken of John when he said, He is a voice shouting in the wilderness. So Isaiah's written six to eight hundred years before this moment, predicting John, He is a voice, that's pretty cool, shouting in the wilderness. Now, uh, verse six, right here, I want to point out real quick, verse six, and then all people will see the salvation sent from God. Uh Matthew, Mark, and John's Gospels all cut everything off at verse five. Now, it's okay that verse six continues because we know the point of Luke's gospel is to make sure people know this good news is for the world. Right? So Matthew, Mark, John, they write, they quote the same passages from Isaiah, but they do not include verse six. Luke includes verse six, and he wants to make sure people are hearing this whole message is for the whole world, starting with John's announcement. The imagery that we see from this picture is people returning from exile, roads being cleared, paths being made straight. Israel had spent time out of their homeland because they had been disobedient to the Lord. The Lord promised, after 70 years, you're gonna come home. And to come home, they were going to have to go through the wilderness. They would have to walk through the desert. And so these visuals remind Israel they will be coming home. But spiritually, Israel had a mindset. If we obey enough, if we follow the law closely enough, then things will be restored. And over time, that turned into something pretty dangerous. Outward behavior without inward change. Right? We all get there at some point where things become rote, things become routine, things become this practice, and then we forget about why we do what we do, and then we just go through the motions. And over time, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. It can happen to all of us. You can have a gym membership, you can wear the Nike Tech clothes, you can talk about fitness, you can have every fitness app on your phone and never actually get healthy. You can. You can open up your phone on your Bible, you can open up your phone to the Bible app, but just because the app is open, it doesn't mean your heart is open. There's a danger, and you and I have to pay attention to this. So John shows up and his message is simple: repent, turn from sin, turn to God. And he ties it to something visible, baptism. Not as a ritual, but as a real sign of change. So people come out to see him. He's gaining a lot of attention, and he commits a big, friendly, evangelical, seeker-friendly, no, no. Here's what he says verse 7. When the crowds came to John for baptism, he said, You brood of snakes. How awesome would it be if just one morning I just got up here and was like, You brood of snakes? Like, we live in such an offend, easily offended culture. Like, it's so crazy to me that he starts this way, and people are like, Yes, yes, we are brood of snakes. Tell us, John. Tell us what's up, John. We are, we are so far from God. Here in this room and here in our country, there will be people who are like, I'm offended and I will never go back. I'm not a brood of snakes. I'm a whatever, you know, you could fill in the blank. But the point is, he starts with, you brood of snakes, who warned you to flee the coming wrath? Now, another note about Luke, and this is just you can nerd out with me, in Matthew and in the other gospels, they make sure to talk that Jesus is saying this just to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Luke doesn't give that differential differential. He's like, it's all of us. We're all there. He's talking to all of us. Again, follows in path with thee. The Lord is the one who is for everybody, and we're all in the same boat together. All right. So when the crowds came to John for baptism, he said, You brood of snakes, who warned you to flee the coming wrath. Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don't just say, We're safe, for we're descendants of Abraham. That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these stones. You brood of snakes. His point is clear. Stop hiding behind spiritual talk and appearances. Knock it off. God sees your heart. God knows what's going on. Your lip service means nothing to God. They were saying, but we're descendants of Abraham. We're fine. We're in the same bloodline as Abraham. We're good. Today it sounds like I grew up in the church. My family Christian. I go to a church every Sunday. I believe the right things. But John says those things mean nothing if your heart hasn't changed. If your heart is far from God. God isn't looking for your background, He's looking for repentance. And the road to preparing our hearts for Jesus often involves revelation of what does not save us. Some of you, you're so convinced that whatever it is you're chasing is saving you, Jesus doesn't make sense to you. But some of you have felt the disappointment of your money failing you. You are like, I have put my trust in money and it has all gone in a heartbeat. I really do need Jesus. Some of you haven't felt that yet. So Jesus doesn't make sense to you. Some of you have felt the heartbreak of relationships that you have completely put your entire self into and thought, this will save me, and then it didn't. You're like, I need Jesus to save me. Some of you aren't there yet. Some of you are like, this relationship is saving me, and you haven't felt the heartbreak of the letdown. You don't think Jesus makes sense right now. Your education, sex, it doesn't matter, all of it. We all need to have revealed in our lives these things don't save. John is doing this right here. Part of the way to the road being leveled is us understanding what does not save. Doesn't mean we like when it's revealed, but we definitely desperately need it. In a spiritual wasteland and with good people around, John is a voice crying out for God. John's baptism was not about ritual. This dipping in the Jordan was in an area far from recognized places of worship and temple and synagogues. And this baptism that John was calling people to was about a moral and a spiritual return to the Lord. Real repentance shows up in how you live. This is what John is going to get at. Faith isn't proven by what you say, it's revealed by your fruit. No one has to walk up to an orange tree that's producing oranges and go, convince me you're an orange tree. We look at the tree and we go, that's the orange tree. We look at the apple tree and we go, that's the apple tree. How do you know? Because of the fruit. John again, he breaks all the rules. In verse 9, he says, Even now the axe of God's judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire. When God shows up, and we've been singing about it all morning, and my heart can't help but feel it. When God shows up, it is not like grandpa showing up with some candies in his pocket for his children. Some weak, fun loving old man. When God shows up, mercy is present, but so is judgment. Mercy and judgment come together. When I walk downstairs into my living room and it's dark and I can't see anything, and I turn the light on in my living room, that light doesn't create the couch, the cat, the blankets, the pillows, the TV that's in that room. What does the light do? It reveals that those things are there. Not someday, John is saying. Now, when God shows up, two things come mercy and judgment. It's uncomfortable, but it's unavoidable. There are those who reject what God is saying, and there are those who love what God is saying. Luke's gospel will be good news to some, and it will be bad news for others. In fact, many of the commentaries that are written by Eastern people talk about the women when they left the tomb finding Jesus raised from the dead. When those women showed up to the disciples, it actually describes them as giving warning to the disciples, Jesus is alive. You know why it's a warning? Quit messing around with God. Quit pretending that he's not who he says he is. Quit living after things that are leaving you empty. Quit denying his power in your life. So when the women come, we're always like, the resurrection is great news. It's actually a warning to take seriously what God is doing on the earth and in his people. We announce good news, but there's warning with it. That can be very bad news for people who don't want Jesus to be the Messiah. It's good news for some, terrible news for others. He continues, actually, in Luke chapter 2, this is why the prophecy is spoken about Jesus in verse 34. This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall and many others to rise. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. The axe is at the root of the tree. It's sitting right there. It's leaning up against it. John doesn't say judgment is on its way. Through his announcement, judgment is here. Jesus explains in John chapter 3. We love verse 16. One of our favorites, right? For this is how God loved the world. He gave his one and only son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. Yay! Love it. Keep reading. Verse 17. God sent his son into the world, not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. Right? Jesus didn't come into the world to judge it, right? But to save it. Verse 18. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has what? Already been judged for not believing in God's one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact. God's light came into the world, but people love the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. Verse 20 All who do evil hate the light, refuse to go near it, for the fear of their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants. Visual, seeing, fruit. Judgment is based on this. Jesus came into the world, but people love the darkness more. When God shows up, judgment and mercy show up. Jesus announced to the world is good news. It's terrible news for others. And I love the crowd's response. Verse 10. The crowd asks, What should we do? I love that response. I don't know if we ask that question after every sermon we hear, after every time we sit in the scripture, after every time we pray, after every time we get up from our devotional time, do you end that time with, what should we do? What should I do? What should be the step that I take of obedience from my time with the Lord? Or are you so much like, as long as I have my coffee and my pen and my Bible and my journal, that's all that matters to me. I'm not actually asked to change. I'm not actually asked to do anything in obedience or response. I just had my time, right? That's the the what should we do is an important question. Because if God is about our transformation, he's not just trying to drop, give us good information. He's going, what are you going to put into practice from what has been revealed about my character and who I am and how I've gifted you and who you are and who I'm calling you to be? The right question is, what should we do? Because real faith is not abstract, it's practical. Very practical. Fallen human beings love to hide behind a spirituality that has nothing to do with our everyday lives. We love to be spiritual in our talking and we ask that we we want those things to ask nothing of us. That's why we're more comfortable with saying the universe organize things for me. Universe doesn't hold me accountable, universe doesn't have anything in mind for my life. It's just out there and it's abstract, never asking me of anything, never demanding a change or transformation or a surrender in my life, but it's just what I want it to be. Let's us do whatever we want while we feel spiritual. John tells them, if your faith is in God is real and you have turned to Him and away from your sin, it's going to be incredibly practical. Listen, verse 11, John says, if you have two shirts, right? They're asking, what do we do? John says, if you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry. Even corrupt tax collectors came to be baptized and asked, Teacher, what should we do? He replied, Collect no more taxes than the government requires. What should we do? asked the soldiers. John replied, Don't extort money or make falc f false accusations and be content with your pay. What should we do? Right? Like you should go up, right? Whatever your profession is, go up to John. What should I do? You're a teacher, what should I do? You're in the finance world, what should I do? Right? You're raising kids, what should I do? It's incredibly practical. Living the kingdom life is meant to be expressed through our lives everywhere we are. What should I do? I don't have when was the last time you asked the Lord? What should I do? Maybe for the next week, you wake up in the morning and just go, Lord, what should I do? You think he would love to answer that question for his church, for his people? I 100% do. But we don't think that way. We don't start with that. We're like, God, here's my 10 things I'm gonna get done today. I'm gonna do them all. I'm gonna get them all knocked out, right for you, and it's gonna be awesome. And God's like, that's cool, but I didn't ask you to do that. It's gonna be fine. You know, it is what it is, but I'd love if you would just be like, what do you want me to do? And give him a chance to answer. What could he say to his church? If you have two shirts, maybe you give one away. If you have food, maybe you should share it. Tax collectors, quit exploiting people. Quit hurting your own. You know, one of the notes that's pretty interesting about tax collectors in that day is that whenever they they always had somebody over them who was like, This is how much money I need from your region. And so it was up to the tax collector to come up with his own salary, because he had a responsibility to collect for whoever is over him. And John's words were don't take more than what your officials are asking from you. That's a pretty heavy implication. I just, I mean, maybe I'm slow to the game, but what he's telling these tax collectors is don't actually take any money for yourself. And in a roundabout way, he might be saying, get another job. In a roundabout way, he might be saying, bro, trust God for your income instead of stealing it from your own people. Like I maybe I'm late to the game, but I like for that I was going, if he only takes what the government requires, he's not collecting anything for himself. Yo. And then to the soldiers, stop abusing with your power. You're using your authority and you're hurting people, taking advantage of people because you're greedy. Be content with your wealth. Hmm. Different people, same principle. Real repentance turns you from obsession with yourself to choosing to benefit others. I told you, incredibly practical. We don't love practical, we love up here. So we can just debate about it, have talks about it, think about it. John takes it down into the dirt. Loving God shows up in how you love people, and loving people is tied to your love of God. For works will be displayed, your faith is gonna show up way before your lips. Service convinces anybody. John's preaching where he came from, everyone's asking. Verse 15. Everyone was expecting the Messiah to come soon, and they were eager to know whether John might be the Messiah. John answered their questions by saying, I baptize you with water, but someone is coming soon who's greater than I am, so much greater that I'm not even worthy to be his slave, and untie the straps of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn, but burning the chaff with never-ending fire. John used many such warnings as he announced the good news to the people. Isn't it weird the word warning being used with announcing good news? Warning and announcement. Good news. Judgment and mercy, Holy Spirit and fire, wheat and chaff, a separation. John started, people started wondering if John was the Messiah, and he shuts it down immediately. John prepares the people, Jesus saves the people. John calls them to change. Jesus says, I can actually change you. Whether or not we like John, he is a picture of what a Christ follower does best: honoring God and helping neighbor. John did that by proclaiming both repentance and forgiveness. By proclaiming God's words to return to him, he would reveal the secrets of our hearts, what we hide behind. Verse, what is God actually looking for? We need to know both in our lives. And there's one great reversal that you and I could miss if we are not paying attention here. Look closely in verse four. Prepare the way for the Lord's coming. Clear the road for him. Here's where everything gets turned on its head. All this talk about preparing the way, leveling roads, making paths straight. We assume we've got to make our way to God. But the gospel says the opposite. In Christ, God is making his way to us. The valleys are filled, the mountains are leveled, the path is cleared, not for us, but for him. This is where the story doesn't make sense to us. It's shocking to us. You don't live your life leveling all the ways to get to God. He leveled all the ways to get to us. A few years ago, I don't know if you've seen the internet video. It's pretty popular, but action star like Jackie Chan and his daughter are watching this like old video of him doing all of his old school stunts. Like really young Jackie Chan. So his daughter wouldn't have even been close to being born. And so they're watching all of his action, all of his stunts, all of his falls, all of the pain, all of the bloopers, all of the stuff. And it's a fascinating video to watch them watch his body of work. And his daughter, just through tears, looks at him and she says, Papa, you're awesome. Like it was like if you were watching this video, there was sweat coming from everybody's eyes. Like you just did. It was an incredibly powerful moment that a father and a daughter share. In Jesus' filling of valleys and God's leveling of mountains and clearing of roads, God coming close to us. Repentance is us saying, Papa, you are awesome. Your full body of work is incredible to me, and I haven't noticed it and I haven't paid attention to it, and I've run after other things, and I've been trying to fill in valleys and level mountains with my works and all the things I can do. But Papa, your work is awesome. What you've done when I look at the cross, many of us hesitate to look at the cross because we know what God took on Himself right there, and we don't want to deal with that. We want to think everything is warm and fuzzy, but there is time for repentance in our lives where we go, God, thank you so much for what you've offered us. Thank you so much for the gift you have given to us. We realize that in this, at the cross, we can see what He's done for us. But at the cross, Jesus also pulled back the veil on all the idols we are worshiping and their ineffectiveness in our lives. And so when we look at the cross and we go, I've loved this thing more than what you've done, Jesus. I've loved money more, I've loved sex more, power, fame, approval, authority, family, education, the next job, the next thing, all the things. I've loved them more than you. The thing I don't, I don't need another thing. I need you, God. We all find ourselves in that spot. That is what sin is. And Ben, you can come. God is so very holy. Repentance is absolutely necessary. Some of us, you grew up hearing the fear of the Lord, the fear of the Lord, and the fear of the Lord, and maybe you haven't understood what that is, but God is so incredibly holy that he's so different than us. It is the the holiness is his 100%, all of his character and all of who he is in comparison to who we are covered in DNA with sin and death. God is not able to be around sin. And you and I can't move forward with a holy God clinging to our sin. But because God is also gracious, forgiveness is offered right now. Right now. So what is repentance? It's not earning forgiveness, it's responding to it. You see, repentance is a gift to the church. Repentance is a gift to the believer because we have received this forgiveness that God has offered. You don't clean yourself up, so God will accept you. God comes to you, and that changes you. Repentance is what happens when you finally see clearly. The things you've been building your life on, they are not enough. And you turn, not perfectly, but genuinely to the Lord. That's what softens your heart. That's what changes your direction. That's what produces fruit. So today, if your heart has been pierced by his word, have you heard this as good news, or does this feel like bad news to you? For those of you obsessed with your castles, this will be bad news to you because there is only one king. But for those of you who are just desperate enough for God's grace, this is the best news you can possibly hear. Where there's no desperation, there will be no excitement for the good news. I know we all love to appear strong, but the gospel confronts what we won't let go of. Some of us need to let go of some of the things that God has asked us to let go of. But you're clinging to it. Like, even if it's a bad thing, like we still cling to Him because we're like, God, I don't know what I would do without this part of my identity. I don't know what I would do without this thought process. I don't know what I would do without this narrative in my life. And God's going, I want you to let it go. And if you need help with that, why don't you come to me? What should I do, Lord? What should I do? Will you stop hiding behind externals? I go to church, I believe the right things, I come from the right background. None of that replaces repentance. None of it. God has already come close to us. The roads have been made clear. The question is, will you turn and will you receive what He's done? Because the same message of judgment and mercy still stands, it's good news to some, bad news for others. It's a message that still comforts the troubled and troubles the comforted. Let's stand and let's pray.com, or you can send us an email at infohlandchristian.com. God bless you guys.