Grace Community Church
Winchester, VA
www.GraceCommunity.com
Rev. Bradford Reaves, Sr. Pastor
Watch this message at: https://youtu.be/s-261UnKZCA
Introduction
I heard on the news of a woman who was on an overseas flight. She called the flight attendant over to her and told her she was having a heart attack. The flight attendant asked, "Is there a doctor onboard?" At that point, 67 heart doctors stood up. They were all headed to a convention for cardiac surgeons.
Imagine her joy when she saw the doctors. They were ready, willing, and able to effectively diagnose her problem and prescribe the correct treatment. They had the knowledge, expertise, and desire to take care of her and meet her needs. Remember the joy we have in Christ who is completely capable of carrying us home!
Doctors are remarkable people. They are studious, methodical, caring, and people who give others hope. So I find it fitting that God would use a physician in first-century Palestine to give an account of the life of Jesus. We need it; our faith needs it; our world needs this Gospel because it answers doubting questions that can lead to unbelief. The mysteries of the birth, death, and resurrection of God the Son appear so certain in Luke.
So it seems fitting that today we embark on a major journey as a church. If the Lord should tarry and we’re still here, I estimate that we’ll be concluding this series around 2024. Yes, 4 years.
During this time, I want us as a church to closely examine the Scriptures. Not only Luke’s Gospel but the relationship of Luke with the rest of Scripture. I want us as a church to become better students of the Bible. I want to see us as a church dig in deeply.
It is important - imperative for churches to move through Scripture exegetically together for several reasons. First, it allows us to not get focused on our own agendas or preferences in Scripture but keeps us well-rounded. We must examine the themes and topics that we enjoy and the one less popular.
The Christian faith is popular and easily abandoned at the same time. Today, we are seeing so many attempts to add something to Christianity. It’s not surprising in this postmodern culture that rejects truth. And so Christianity and our worship service are more about our feelings than facts.
Here’s what we’re going to learn today: Build your faith on facts, not feelings.
Grab your Bibles and let’s read this passage together:
1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)
I. The Writer of Luke
We don’t know too much about Luke, but we have some interesting biblical facts about him. He is universally accepted at the writer of this gospel even though he doesn’t name himself in the book. Here’s what we know about him:
• Luke was a respected doctor. Colossians 4:14 refers to him as “the beloved physician.”
• He was personally acquainted with firsthand eyewitnesses.
• Luke was the human author of the Gospel of Luke as well as the Book of Acts. That adds up to 52 chapters, making him responsible for about one-third of the New Testament.
• This prologue is written in the most polished Greek of the New Testament, which would make it appealing to the highly educated reader.
• Luke devotes more space to the birth and infancy of Jesus than any other gospel.
• He goes out of his way to show the gospel is for every class, nation, race, generation, and gender.
• Luke uses the word “sinners” 16 times, more than the other gospel writers combined
• He refers to Jesus as “Savior” twice.
Luke was a people person. You can tell by the way he describes people in his gospel that he related to them. He saw them more than characters in a story, but they were real people who experience a real-time that literally changed the course of history. Luke was also a historian. He recognized the significance of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as more than an event, but of eternal significance. This brings me to his purpose of the Gospel.
II. Luke’s Purpose of Writing the Gospel
Verses 1-4 are one long sentence in Greek and in it we learn a few things. First, there were many accounts of Jesus’ life. The four Gospels in our Bibles are not the only manuscripts we have of Jesus’ life. There are many, Like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas. The problem was that there were many pseudo-authors, altered manuscripts, and inaccuracies.
That’s why Luke begins, Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us,
The early church developed a specific set of criteria in order for the New Testament to be canonized into Scripture. Among those was the author had to have a first-hand connection with the life of Jesus and apostolic origin, the Author had to be known, and it had to be fully consistent with the Apostles’ teaching of the Gospel.
So Luke, Paul’s beloved Physician and likely a witness to much of Jesus’ ministry set out to do just that. Luke, having the mind of a scientist, the pen of a poet, and the heart of an artist approached his writing with order and excellence. He exquisitely and masterfully tells the story of Jesus with historical fervor.
Christianity is not an emotional movement. It is not a spiritual faith alone. Christianity is historical in its nature. Our faith is not based on feelings or incantations; our faith is based on fact and it stands that if Luke, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to approach Scripture and the life of Jesus methodically, then it should be that way for us too.
3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you
During the nineteenth century, liberal Bible scholars tried to argue that Luke was a bad historian, that his books were riddled with factual errors. In the last one hundred years, however, their assessment of Luke’s historiography has been almost completely reversed. The more we learn about the ancient world, the more we see how careful he was to get the facts straight. One historian concludes: “Wherever modern scholarship has been able to check up on the accuracy of Luke’s work the judgment has been unanimous: he is one of the finest and ablest historians in the ancient world.” (Otto Piper).
Christianity is not just a religious philosophy but rather as one pastor says, “It’s primarily about the God who created the universe miraculously invading human history in the person of Jesus Christ who uniquely revealed God to us.” God is not a feeling. He is the creator of all things. You can look at our universe and see incredible order in His creation.
God leaves His fingerprint on every part of his creation. The makeup of the universe. The earth perfectly sitting on its axis. The water makeup, the water cycle, the distance of the earth from the Sun. Walter L. Bradley, Ph.D., states, "Each cell in the human body contains more information than in all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It’s certainly reasonable to make the inference that [DNA] isn’t the random product of unguided nature, but it’s the unmistakable sign of an Intelligent Designer. Today, it takes a great deal of faith to be an honest scientist who is an atheist."
Dr. Henry Morris tells us that in order for life to exist, just in the human body a sequence of information must be combined in a precise order. If you were to take a series of ten flashcards, numbered from one to ten. If these are thoroughly and randomly mixed, and then laid out successively in a linear array along with the table, it would be extremely unlikely that the numbers would fall out in order from one to ten. Actually, there are 3,628,800 different ways in which these numbers could be arranged, so that the "probability" of this particular ordered arrangement is only one in 3,628,800.
Since every single living cell is infinitely more complex than a stack of 10 flashcards, it is impossible that even the simplest form of life could ever have originated by chance. Even the simplest replicating protein molecule that could be imagined has been one in 10^450. Salisbury2 calculates the probability of a typical DNA chain to be one in 10^600. In other words, it is mathematically impossible for life to exist.
Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, "I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious a hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has."
Speaking of the historicity of Christianity, don’t you love hearing about archaeological discoveries? Last week experts in Israel announced that a ring discovered 50 years ago at the Herodian fortress bears the inscription, “Pilatus,” meaning it’s quite possible this belonged to the infamous Pontius Pilate. This is just further confirmation of what we already know from the “Pilate Stone,” hundreds of coins, Josephus, and the Bible itself – there really was a Roman governor in Judea at the time of Jesus named Pilate. In February, archaeologists announced the discovery of a clay seal with the signature of Isaiah. Don’t you love it when archaeology catches up with what the Bible already says is true!
Luke is providing an orderly and historically accurate account because God is a God of order. Luke is going painstakingly out of his way to interview, verify, collaborate, and investigate everything that has happened.
III. Luke’s Recipient of His Gospel
You will notice that Luke’s gospel is addressed to a particular person - Theophilus. Theophilus means, “Lover of God.” We can really only speculate on the identity of Theophilus.
3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,
Theophilus may have been among those described in Luke as “God-fearers.” These were Gentiles who were interested in the Bible and know more about God.
Theophilus may have been an attorney representing Paul in his trial with Caesar.
Theophilus was someone of importance, given Luke’s salutation of him as, “most excellent.” Perhaps he was someone in the Roman government closely associated with Paul’s case. Given that the second volume of Luke Gospel, the Book of Acts
Can I make a little allegory here and say that all of us are or should be a Theophilus? Are you pursuing God as one who loves God? Or are you running from Him? Do you know Jesus? If not, do you know for sure why? Are you so certain in your faith that you are able to live for Jesus, and even to die for him? We are placing our eternity on him - one way or another. Are you satisfied that you are willing to risk eternity on that decision? Or is it based on feeling, preference, tradition, or nothing at all?
Luke is writing this for you for a most divine and excellent purpose. Certainty.
IV. Luke’s Excellence in Leading
Lastly, we see the heart behind our Physician Luke. He is writing this account to Theophilus because of certainty. Like John’s gospel, we studied from 2017 to last year, there is a greater purpose behind Luke writing this gospel.
It is to stand above the masses that have attempted to write out the life of Christ our Lord
It is collect the historical accounts of eyewitnesses
It is to be fastidious with recording these events.
It is to provide a historical, orderly account to someone of great prominence.
It is so that you may have certainty that the things you are taught are true.
The Gospel of Luke is a pursuit of truth. It is not enough to sing songs and have good feelings in church. We pursuers of the truth and therefore also bearers of truth and so we should treat these things as such.
I took some hits from some people because I put my foot down on some music being sung in churches, including here. Our handling of the truth can be expressed artistically, but in being artistic we cannot lose our reverence. We the church are entrusted to hold God’s light, shine God’s light, and be God’s light. We cannot properly do that without a high regard and pursuit of truth (PHILIP GRAHAM RYKEN)
We need to know these things because sometimes we have our doubts. We are like the man who said to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24), or like the disciples who said, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5). This is part of our struggle as fallen creatures living in a fallen world. Assurance doesn’t always come right away, any more than it came right away for the apostles. We believe the gospel, but sometimes we are tempted not to and thus we long to have greater assurance of our faith.
Luke’s Gospel is for anyone who needs to know Jesus. It is for people who have never met Jesus before, and for people who need to meet him again, as if for the very first time. It is for people who aren’t quite sure about Jesus, for people who are just starting to trust in him, and for people who have known him a long time but still need to become more secure in their faith. It is for anyone who wants to know for sure.
Do you know Jesus? Do you know him for sure? Are you so certain in your faith that you are able to live for Jesus, and even to die for him? If you want to be sure, study the Gospel of Luke
Take it to the Cross
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