Preparing to Meet the King

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Don Filcek; Luke 1:1-4 Preparing to Meet the King

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series,
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King Over All, from the Gospel of Luke. Let's listen in. Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here, and I am really glad that we have the opportunity to gather together today in the name of our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Are you glad to be here? I'm glad that we're here together. This morning, we're going to be launching, as Linda said, into a new series on the
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Gospel of Luke. It's going to be a long -term project that we're going to take off in chunks over time.
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We're not going to be studying through the book consecutively. We are going to take next section, next section, but we're going to be here for a few chapters and then go over to other books of the
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Bible here and there and then come back to it off and on in the coming years. That's the way I've chosen to preach the
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Gospels over time because they're big books. It took me about 10 years to get through the
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Gospel of Matthew, but that was just hitting it off and on here and there with many breaks in the middle to study other books.
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So, that's what we're going to be doing, but we're starting Luke. We're going to get through chapter or into chapter 2 at least over Christmas time.
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And while they say you can't judge a book by its cover, you ought to be able to tell something by the cover.
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Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Like, if you had a nice floral print with butterflies on the cover of The Art of War, that might not work.
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You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, you ought to be able to tell something about the book, not necessarily judge it, but something about it.
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This morning we're going to be looking at the ancient equivalent of a book cover. You could say, Don, are you going to really preach on a book cover?
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Kind of. You'll see. Joel Green in his commentary on the book of Luke helpfully highlights the importance of a really good detailed prologue when everything was recorded for us on a scroll.
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I don't know if you ever thought about that. Probably most of you, your scroll work is a little weak. Like, you haven't used scrolls to read very often.
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You guys know what I'm talking about? You just don't do that. And so, most of us are not even familiar with how you would read a scroll.
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Like, you'd usually roll out one part and then roll the bottom and roll the top part and roll the bottom and you just kind of keep up with the text that way.
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So, it's not easy to peruse a scroll. Like a book, you can open it, you can look at the back cover, you can read a little blurb about the author, you can kind of flip through, see the chapter headings, that kind of stuff.
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You guys know what I'm getting at? But not so with a scroll. You can't easily peruse that.
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And so, setting the purpose and context right away at the beginning of something that was recorded in a scroll would provide much needed, a much needed summary of the contents right at the beginning.
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Just kind of open it up, roll it a little bit, look at it, see what's this about. This morning we're going to be looking into the setting and the purpose and the methodology that produced this powerful orderly account of the life of Jesus we know as the
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Gospel of Luke. And while we may wonder why we would want to hear a message on the introduction to a message about the
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King, these four short verses remind me of something that I often forget, and it's something that's helpful for us just even as we, here at the start, think about applying it.
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It is good to be prepared for a meeting with the King. It is good to be prepared for a meeting with the
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King. If you think of what the Gospel of Luke actually is, it's an introduction to the King overall, which is the sermon series title,
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King Overall. If that's the way you understand it, then these first four verses prepare us, are setting the stage for us to meet with Him, and we find cause to believe these words as faithful and true in this preparation to meet our
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Lord and Savior. So, my hope and prayer for all of us as we launch out into a study of the Gospel of Luke, and it's going to lead us up into Christmas, but my hope is that we might encounter our
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King in these times together. Luke was orderly. Luke was a Gentile medical doctor.
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Luke writes an introduction that demonstrates a native grasp of the Greek language that was powerful and potent.
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One Greek scholar said that there is no doubt at all from the Greek language that is written within the
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Gospel of Luke that he spoke Greek as a native speaker. One commentary even went over the top to say it's very apparent that this man who wrote this
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Gospel spoke Greek in his childhood. I guess this is native language. And he was also quite competent in technical writing, as is shown by these first four verses, which scholars go over and like trip over themselves to say how eloquent the
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Greek language is utilized in these opening four verses. It demonstrates a technical knowledge and an in -depth personal knowledge of the language that he was writing in.
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This introduction shows that Luke knew his stuff. And further, this introduction calls all people to sit up and pay attention to the book.
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That's what he wants us to do. After these first four verses, I hope that Luke grabs your attention and that the
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Gospel of Luke is commended to you for your blessing and benefit. His goal is, he doesn't pull any punches, he says at the very end in verse 4, that you may have certainty.
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His goal is our certainty. His goal is your certainty about the things that he records here.
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Luke isn't calling us at all to file this book alongside Shakespeare or Grisham or Tolkien or Steinbeck or whatever authors you like to read.
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He says he researched heavily and exhaustively. He says he left no stone unturned. And he says this is historically accurate.
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And he calls for all of us to trust it as an eyewitness account of the life of Jesus.
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So, I encourage you to open your Bibles or your scripture journals or your devices, if you're not already there, to Luke chapter 1.
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It's a short passage that we're going to read. Seems introductory, and yet I think there's enough in here for us to recognize it as God's Word and to have an impact on our lives.
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So, Luke chapter 1 verses 1 through 4. Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the
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Word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely, for some time passed, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent
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Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us this morning. Father, I thank
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You for Your Word. I thank You for Your Word that is powerful in going out.
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We even read in Scripture that Your very Word created light. You said, let there be light. You said, and there was result.
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And here, we believe that we are encountering Your very Words, the things that You desire to communicate.
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And I've had the glory and the privilege of being in a front row seat, of watching Your Word fashion a people, drawing people together, bringing us into community for love and for sacrifice and for encouragement and for service.
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Father, I thank You for the way that You have brought us together in Your Word. There's so many different messages that are bombarding us, so many different places we can turn for information.
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I thank You that we have a rock -solid, stable place to go to for truth that communicates the glory of Your creation, the glory of Your work in the people
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Israel, the glory of Your sending forth Your Son through that people, the glory of a sinless life, the glory of His miraculous actions,
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His teachings, His sacrificial death, His burial, and His resurrection that is the very source of our hope.
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Father, I pray that this Word would grab our attention in these coming weeks and even today as we have an opportunity to look at why it's trustworthy, that You would help us to double down on the truth of Your Word in a dark age where there's so many messages, in a dark age where the internet is just always calling us to just do a little
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Google search and be settled with that. Father, in this dark age of so much misinformation that we have the information, we have the truth.
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And Father, I pray that the message of the glorious Gospel that is revealed to us through Genesis to Revelation would have an impact in our hearts that would light us up to not just worship
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You in the next 15 minutes with a few songs, but with a lifetime of Monday through Saturday of worship and gladness before You, of serving
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You and honoring You as our act of worship because of what You have done for us. We thank You for the Gospel. We thank
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You for Your Word. We thank You for Luke and the way that You were able to use him to bring us this glorious message.
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And I pray all of this in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Thanks a lot to the band for being willing to lead us in worship this morning.
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And I want you to get comfortable and find your way to Luke chapter one. Again, those first four verses of that chapter are going to be the focus of our time.
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It's a small section of Scripture, but it's a vital introduction to this entire narrative of the life of Jesus Christ, who of course was the most significant man to ever live.
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And we have an accounting of his life in the Gospel of Luke. Now, I love getting back into one of the
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Gospels. It's going to be good in the coming years to be able to jump back into Luke from time to time and really dive back into the life of Christ like we did with Matthew for a few years there.
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But Luke is interested in telling us why he wrote his Gospel and what he hopes to accomplish. And that's a good starting place for us right here at the beginning.
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But it might be good for us to begin with a little bit of the character of the Gospel of Luke, who Luke was, kind of how the structure of it is.
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The book of Luke -Acts is a two -part series that included those two books written by the same author,
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Luke. So, Luke and Acts came at us together. Acts 1 -1 makes that clear. It refers to the
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Gospel that was written for a man named Theophilus and that Acts was written by the same man who was also writing it for the same guy,
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Theophilus. And this Gospel tells us in verse 3 that it was written under the patronage of a guy named Theophilus, therefore connecting
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Luke and Acts together. And tying those two together is part of really the commission of this patron guy named
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Theophilus. Patron means a supporter. He supported Luke in this process. And Luke is recorded as a traveling companion of the
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Apostle Paul. And in the sections of Acts, when he is with Paul in his narrative, he uses the pronoun we.
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And then when he's not in the posse, he uses the pronoun they. So, it becomes very evident that he is the author by using the word we in the sections that he's included in.
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Also, Luke appears to have been meticulous in his research through Luke and Acts. He was a medical doctor,
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Acts tells us, and there are other evidences that it was Luke who wrote this despite the fact that the Gospel never mentions his name.
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That's why I'm kind of giving you evidences as to why it was him because it doesn't say, I, Luke, wrote this Gospel.
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But it's pretty clear that it was him. And I found the introduction to the book of Luke in the ESV Study Bible to be helpful.
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It's concise as to the reasoning why we believe that Luke wrote it. If you don't have an ESV Study Bible, it is my favorite study
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Bible. It is one that I refer to every week when I'm preaching. And you can grab one at the welcome table or you can order your own at Amazon.
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But I really, really like particularly that study Bible with those notes. But Luke begins at a strange place in verse one.
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Considering that he's telling us why he's writing this Gospel, why he's writing this, he begins by telling us, many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been fulfilled.
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Many of the things that have been accomplished. At one level, it could sound like Luke is saying, since many people have written about this,
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I thought I would write about it too. Well, okay, that's not a big selling point. Hundreds of books out there about how to be a good parent or something like that.
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Why do I want to read this one? Why do I want to read this narrative about the life of Jesus? But I want to point out that's not quite
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Luke's point here, because there's a fascinating thing that's going on in verse one.
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Many, he says, have undertaken, many have undertaken to compile a narrative, a narrative.
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And it is worth making much of the singular case of the word narrative in our text.
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In verse one, many compiled stories are forming one narrative.
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The various Gospel accounts form a single narrative of the life of Jesus, telling His story through a bunch of eyewitnesses.
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They are not competing accounts, not Mark against Luke and against Matthew and against John and all of these accounts, but rather corroborating evidences, not in competition with one another, but adding facets, adding another viewpoint to one man's life.
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His name is Jesus Christ. I think of this much like if you witnessed, a good illustration of this is if you witnessed a car accident along with seven other people, each person is going to bring a bit of a unique perspective on that one single event.
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And a good police officer is going to show up on the scene, take down some notes, listen to everybody's perspective, and they will be able to form one narrative account of what happened.
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There weren't multiple accidents that day. That was one accident, seven people saw it. There aren't seven truths, right?
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Is there seven truths to that? No, there's one truth. There's one thing that really happened, and the officer's job is to get to the bottom of that.
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Well, Luke is taking that on and saying many people are reporting into one narrative of the life of Christ.
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It's important because Luke is telling us what he thinks is happening and what he thinks he's doing in this book. Our ears ought to perk up when we're hearing him tell us why he's writing and what he thinks he's doing.
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He is seeking to fill out more detail about the life of Jesus. Luke tells us here clearly what he perceived was happening in his generation.
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The eyewitnesses to the events of the life of Christ were still alive at this time. The gospel is spreading.
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People are traveling and ministering the gospel, as verse 2 says. And accounts of the life of Christ are being told as people travel.
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And many of those stories had reached Luke, and as he says, they were delivered to him. He has already become somewhat of a repository for information about Jesus.
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People have started to invest in him, the stories. So Luke sees himself as entering a process already taking place around the world.
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He believes he has something to add to the narrative, and it proves to be something of significant value. As a matter of fact, used by the
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Holy Spirit to provide us this gospel account of the life of Jesus Christ.
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So verses 1 and 2 give us the context of that first generation of the church during the spread of the amazing nature of the life of Jesus.
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And it began with the eyewitnesses who were there in the beginning and continued to minister the word. And the phrase ministers of the word that you see in the
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English Standard Version there shows that in this very early phase of church history, there were some who were already traveling with the purpose of spreading the eyewitness reports of the life of Christ, but also the significance of the life of Christ.
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The gospel is being proclaimed that God had sent his son into the world to live a sinless life, to heal the sick, and to demonstrate his power to teach of his kingdom, only to be crucified for the sins of his people, but raised to new life on the third day.
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The types of things that were being compiled during this time are defined in the text as the things that have been accomplished, the things that have been accomplished among us.
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The us would be the generation alive at that time. He's writing to a broad audience, much like I might talk about the times that we live in.
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We don't all experience every single thing together, but we can be said to be experiencing the world events at the same time, right?
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And that's what he's getting at, because we are people alive in this generation at the same time. But that phrase, accomplished among us, begs a question, accomplished by whom?
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Who's doing the accomplishing in the events that he sees and then records for us? And further, the word accomplished probably ought to be translated by the word fulfilled.
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I'm increasingly impressed with a new translation of the Bible called the Christian Standard Bible. Have any of you ever heard of it? CSB is what it's called by its acronym,
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Christian Standard Bible. I'm planning on reading it in this next year, 2025, and I take this as far, far, far advanced notice, but I am open to changing the translation that I preach from, and I just might be preaching from the
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CSB if it proves to be as good as it purports to be. But it gets the verb right here, only a couple of translations get the word fulfilled in here.
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The rest have it different in a variety of ways. Accomplished among us is more generic than fulfilled among us.
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And why is that significant? Why am I talking about the difference between accomplished and fulfilled? Well, here's the significance.
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Luke is interested in tying the events of the life of Jesus to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, things that were fulfilled, spoken of, promised in the
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Old Testament, now completed in Christ. And Luke is very interested in bringing those to us, declaring those to us.
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He knows that what Jesus is doing and has done is a new thing, but not merely new.
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It's also connected to the old tradition through fulfillment, to the old promises, to the
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Old Covenant by Christ fulfilling these things. Things like Micah saying he's going to be born in Bethlehem.
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Guess where he was born? Bethlehem, right? Like these things fulfilled in the time of Luke, and he's recording those for us.
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But the remainder of our text highlights a few unique things that God gave to Luke to make his narrative useful to us.
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Many were compiling and sharing stories, but here during the remainder of this message, I'm going to highlight eight things that make
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Luke particularly a helpful reporter when it comes to compiling an orderly account to add to the narrative of the life of Jesus.
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Eight things, and you're looking at that little section on your scripture journal. How many of you have scripture journals? How in the world are you going to fit eight points in there?
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That's up to you. I can't help you with that, but good luck. But all of these eight things are recorded for our confident faith.
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Here's the application. I'm giving it to you right now. These eight things are recorded for our confident faith in God who has revealed scripture to us.
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Amen? It's His Word, and these are the things that He uniquely used Luke to provide for us.
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This is like a resume of Luke that is meant to prepare us to take this gospel narrative of Luke seriously.
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He is going to purport to teach us about our Lord and Savior. And I just want to point out as a side note, when anyone ever sets out to teach us about our
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Lord and Savior, we ought to be discerning. Now, we ought to be discerning at all times, right?
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But how many of you have just ever, like, seen something that was evil, and it was like, that's clearly evil? Raise your hand if you know what
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I'm talking about. Like, it's like, that's evil? Okay, all right. Not a lot of discernment required in that.
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But when somebody says, hey, I learned something new about Jesus that you should know, your radar ought to go up.
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When somebody starts telling you that they're going to teach you something about your Lord and Savior, that's when you ought to, like, the discernment ought to be in high gear at that point.
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And what I fear is that for many Christians, for many of us, we hear the name of Jesus, and we check out, and our eyes roll back in our head, and we just take it all in.
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Let's talk about Jesus, so it's got to be good. No, that's when you're in the most danger, because somebody is going to try to infiltrate your view of Jesus with their thoughts, and their opinions, and their beliefs.
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Do you get what I'm talking about in that? Luke, Matthew, Mark, John, rock -solid truth about our
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Lord. Make this your favorite. When you want to know Jesus, you better be going here.
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And what I want to point out is, man, I don't want to pick on this, because many of us have enjoyed parts of it, but how many of you ever heard of a
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TV show called The Chosen? Luke first, Matthew first,
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Mark first, John first, and go back again, and again, and again.
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Because if, go ahead and raise your hand if you watch some of The Chosen. I have. I've watched it. Have you fixed it?
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Have you corrected anything in there? It says that I fell. My watch literally just says, you got a little carried away, and it's about to call.
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It was literally about to report. Maybe that was my blood pressure. Have you fixed it?
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Have you ever found anything in The Chosen that needed correction, that was wrong? And if you haven't, get in the
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Word. This is where you should know about Jesus. I'm not against you supplementing that with other things.
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I'm not saying the only thing you can read is the Bible. The only thing you can watch is the Bible. The only thing is quoting the
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Bible. But, man, if you don't know Luke, if you don't know
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Matthew, if you don't know John, if you don't know Ephesians, you got plenty of work to do here.
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Don't let others, don't drink from wells that are polluted. Don't drink from places that are going to taint your view, are going to tweak your view of Jesus just off.
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And honestly, the evil one is not wanting, the strategy for Christians is not just to like, boom, get you just like, live in La Vida Loca tomorrow.
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Now he does that for some of us, unfortunately, but more often than not, it's just to, let's give you a little bit, just to get you off a little bit.
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And eventually over 10 years, that yields all kinds of crud in your life. Anyways, I'm not against The Chosen.
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That was not, that wasn't my goal to preach against that, and very little of that was in my notes. So, um, God wanted that for some reason.
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But make sure that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is where you go to learn about Jesus. This is where we learn about him.
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We ought to be comfortable and confident in Luke's credentials. He wants us to know that before we assimilate his account into our internal narrative of our
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Lord. Before we really think about him, we ought to be understanding why we should pay attention.
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Why should we pay attention to Luke? And he says, here's, here's one thing that God used in Luke, that he gave him in order to be useful in this.
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Luke had access to the eyewitnesses. That's our first point. Luke had access to eyewitnesses. That's in verse 2.
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And it's vital. It's vital and interesting because there is no indication that Luke himself as a Gentile was himself an eyewitness to these events.
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Why would we listen to this Gentile doctor tell us about Jesus? There's no indication that he was among the disciples.
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No indication that he was one of the 70 or one of the crowd following Jesus around the countryside. What makes you qualified,
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Luke? Give me a break. You're not even a Jew. But those who walked, he had access to the eyewitnesses, he says.
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Those who walked and talked with Jesus. Those who ate with Jesus. Those who learned with him. Those who walked on the water with him.
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Those who ate the bread, he multiplied. And quite likely, even some of those he healed were accessible to Luke as he traveled with the intention, the sole intention of compiling this narrative by the start of his gospel and the way he begins, by the way, the very detailed birth narrative.
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More birth narrative than any of the gospels. He gives more information before the birth of Jesus than any of the other gospels.
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How can he do that? Well, I believe, I do, I firmly believe, although it doesn't say it and this is speculation,
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I have reasonable, tons of reasons to believe that he interviewed Mary. That he interviewed
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Zechariah or Elizabeth if they were still alive. That he talked with them. But he received many reports, he says, many reports from eyewitnesses to these things.
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The second thing is that Luke had access to ministers like Paul. Not just that first generation, but he also had much access to the second generation of Christians as well.
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That's in verse 2. Luke was the traveling companion of the Apostle Paul who wrote about a third, about half of the
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New Testament. And they rubbed shoulders with disciples traveling back and forth to Jerusalem.
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Luke was well connected in the early church and had access to many ministers of the word. He says it right here.
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The church was small but growing like crazy during this era and at the hub of it all were the apostles who
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Luke connected with likely directly as they went back and forth to Jerusalem. Luke traveling with Paul out on his missionary journey and then coming back and then going out again and then coming back.
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So he had access to eyewitnesses. He had access to ministers like Paul. But also third, people who were there from the beginning are those who are informing
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Luke. And you go, well isn't that repetitive? Eyewitnesses, those who were there from the beginning. Well there's a little distinction between that.
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They might, despite the fact that it might seem like a redundancy in my points, the time stamp on this one makes it worth mentioning again.
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Those who are with those who are with Jesus from the beginning, eyewitnesses to only the crucifixion are different than eyewitnesses from the beginning.
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Do you get the difference? I mean some come late. They're still eyewitnesses. They observed the crucifixion.
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They were there with Jesus. They saw him die for our sins. But they weren't there from the beginning and he says
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I have access to all kinds of eyewitnesses including those who were with Jesus from the very beginning.
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Luke's compilation included early eyewitness accounts. I think very early eyewitness accounts.
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As a matter of fact, have you ever wondered how anyone knew about those shepherds all alone in the field that night when the angels sang over them near Bethlehem?
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How did anybody get that report? Was somebody hiding in the bushes watching, scribing? A report.
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They reported and they were interviewed and they were interacted with and they shared this account and it's recorded for us in Luke.
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So these first three credentials pertain to the quality of his sources and he says I had the best of sources.
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I went all the way back to the originals. I went to the OGs and I was there with them and I talked with them and I interacted with them.
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But the next three qualifications pertain to his methodology which probably speaks more to Luke's character.
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God selecting out a man to do this job and Luke was a tenacious reporter.
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That's our fourth point from verse three. Luke was a tenacious reporter. This is shown by two things that he declares in the text.
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First is that Luke was glad to investigate. With the phrase it seemed good to me that starts verse three we see his pleasure in compiling and recording an orderly account.
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Now not everyone would enjoy this work or find it good to be given this task. How many of you would love to go around and do the reporting like Luke did?
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Go around and interview people and write down the reports. Any of you? No one? I think I kind of enjoy it.
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Personally, I would not have always enjoyed it but I think I would now. But Luke enters the task with what should be described as a desire to compile, a desire to sort through and sift through, and a desire to give an orderly report of his findings.
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Second, Luke was thorough in his investigation. Not only does he enter the work joyfully but he also enters it with a commitment to being as thorough as possible.
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We see this in words like having followed all things. This is like saying as a reporter he left no stone unturned.
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He tracked down every lead. There was not a potential witness out there that he left un -interviewed.
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He followed all the leads all the way to the end. This research would have required travel, it would have required tenacity, it would have required hours spent by lamplight pouring over letters and reports or even writing down oral reports from interviews.
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This would be tedious work to many. I think many of us in the room refuse to raise our hand because it just sounds tedious to us.
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But to Luke, it seemed good. It looked like good work to me. Many of you, many of us in the room, wrote our very last book report in high school or college and that was that.
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How many of you, that's kind of you, like you wrote your last report and you're pretty glad that that was your last report. And that would have been me and so then
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God calls me to a place where I write a weekly report and deliver it in speech form every
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Sunday. Man oh man would my English teachers be really really surprised. And I think as a matter of fact there's nobody that knew me in high school that wouldn't be surprised that I do this every week.
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But Luke, Luke in explaining his process identifies his commitment was to joyful and thorough investigation.
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He says that's that's what I set out to do. Joyfully, gladly, it was good work and I wanted to be thorough in my investigation.
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But also we see another character quality in Luke the fifth. Luke cared for precision in verse three.
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Note the word the word closely in the English Standard Version. He followed all things. So he was he was absolutely tenacious and thorough in his investigation but he followed all things closely.
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Luke's attention to detail makes his gospel by the way the longest and most comprehensive. It actually includes 30 percent more content than all of the other gospels.
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It's the longest one. In part I believe it's due to his thorough investigation. And that's just to clarify that for just a second.
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I want to be sure that we all understand. This is not to say that Mark's gospel should be longer or that Matthew was a slouch and just a little bit lazy and didn't get to all the leads.
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But each gospel brings something unique with it and it's beneficial for us to understand. What Mark brings to the table is pace.
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You want to get after the story of Jesus and just get right into the content quickly and with pace. And I think that Mark's favorite word was, and then.
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And he just starts almost every verse with, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, you're not going to believe this, and then behold this happened, and then this happened.
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And he's got pace. If you like that kind of pace, man, jump into Mark and study it.
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Or Matthew specializes in fulfilled prophecies, and particularly giving evidence to a religious mind that Jesus is the
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Messiah, the one that was promised. Tons of fulfilled prophecies in Matthew. Tons of Old Testament references in Matthew.
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John specializes in depth, right? Like he gets to the spiritual nugget of everything.
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He starts off his gospel with, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
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God, and immediately your mind just melts. Like what? What are we talking about? No, where's the shepherds?
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Right? Like you're just kind of like, immediately like, what is this? The Mary, and the birth, and the things, and the stuff, and the manger, and now he's like, in the beginning was the
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Word. The principle, the great, the great applied principle of the world wrapped in human flesh, and he came, and he lived among us.
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And you're just like, what? So he goes really deep. What does Luke do? He goes really broad.
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He gives us tons of content. Teachings that we don't have in the other gospels that he was able to suss out from the interviews, and talks with people who were there, and he gives us more.
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Breadth is Luke's specialty, and Luke worked at it for a while before he even went to print. He says,
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I worked over it for, quote, some time past, in the English Standard Version. He has done his homework.
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His paper was not a midnight special the night it was due. I think my daughter was just saying something the other night about a paper that was due.
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It was probably nine o 'clock at night, and she was like, it's due by midnight. That kind of stuff happens, but he followed all things.
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He followed all things closely. He followed all things closely for some time.
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Think about that, that progression. Followed all things. He followed all things closely. He followed all things closely for some time.
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The sixth thing is that Luke's end goal is declared for us. What was he shooting for? What did he hope to produce in his study?
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And he desired to produce an orderly account is the word that's used. The phrase orderly account that he uses for what he hopes to produce has been studied in depth by scholars.
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Because understanding this phrase, what did a Greek mind hear when they heard that phrase orderly account, is to understand the book itself.
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What did the author think that they were producing? The author tells us what he produced, and he uses the phrase orderly account for the definition of that.
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This morning we're embarking on a study of Luke's orderly accounting of the life of Christ.
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But what does that mean? It might be helpful for us to identify what he doesn't say here to begin with. He doesn't say,
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I set out and embarked to produce a biography of Jesus. He doesn't say, I set out to produce a modern history in rigid chronology.
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Nor does he say, I set out to produce a myth or a heroic legend. After all the research on the
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Greek phrase orderly account that I did this week, I think Luke is offering us a theologically crafted report in which the individual stories are arranged for an intended effect.
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What we need to understand when we're reading the gospels is that ancient narrators were less concerned for chronology and would tell history out of sequence when it fit the purpose of either dramatic effect or focused teaching.
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And we do the same, not in history class, not in history textbooks at least, but we do so for all kinds of dramatic effect in different places.
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We would do the same if we were to start a history of World War II and just say what we're going to do is we're going to talk about leadership and battles, and then we just take some battles.
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Or the way that war is waged, and imagine a book called World War II, the way that war is waged, and the opening scene is the dropping of the bombs, and then it skips backwards in time to D -Day and tells that account, and then it goes forward to the
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Battle of the Bulge, and then jumps back to the east, and talks about Iwo Jima. And can you picture a book written like that?
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Can you picture that? Now imagine that 300 years from now somebody opens a book like that and goes, this is trash.
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It doesn't follow the historical sequence. While it might be actually quite potent in its communicating what the author intended to say to us from the specific events ordered for that effect, right?
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You don't have to commit to tell historical events in historical chronological order in your book.
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You can write your book however you want to write your book, right? And he's not ever said,
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I'm writing this to give you a chronology of the life of Christ. Luke's goal isn't to give us a modern chronological history nor a comprehensive biography, but rather a theologically driven narrative of the life of Jesus Christ.
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His intention is accomplished. The seventh thing is that Luke was unhindered in his ability to follow the lead.
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So how in the world does this guy travel the world and also put food on the table and sustain himself in all of his travels and pay for everything?
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He actually had a patron, and we read that in verses 3 and on into verse 4, that this orderly account is written for a specific person.
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I cannot declare much about this man, Theophilus. Somebody came up to me after the first service and asked me, whatever happened to Theophilus?
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We just don't know. We don't know if he believed this account. We don't know if he trusted it or if he went back to whatever life he wanted to live.
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We just don't know. There's no record of that. I can't declare much about him that we have rock solid other than that Luke writes for him, which establishes some level of patronage between Theophilus toward Luke.
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But we have historical evidence that this name was used by both Jews and Gentiles alike. Usually you can tell if a person had a
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Jewish heritage by their first name or if they had a Gentile heritage by their last name. There's very few words, very few names rather, that could cross over that gap, but this is one of them.
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So we have record of a high priest after these events, later after the life of Jesus.
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Sometime maybe two generations later, there's a high priest named Theophilus. It means lover of God in a very generic sense in Greek, so that it could be the god
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Zeus that you love, or it could be Hera, the goddess, or it could be Yahweh. It could be the god of the universe.
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And so that name, we don't even know, very base level, we don't even know if he was a Jew or if he was a
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Greek that was commissioning Luke. But it's apparent in these two verses that Luke was traveling and compiling at the wishes of this individual patron named
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Theophilus. And the word excellent before his name, most excellent
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Theophilus, conveys that he was a man of high esteem and also likely a man of high means. Having a patron like this set
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Luke free to pursue leads and travel as needed to get the job done. He had support.
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While he likely had some limits to his resources, being supported in this way would have certainly set him free to devote his life during at least this season to the pursuit of the truth regarding Jesus.
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And he takes advantage of it joyfully. So he was unhindered in his ability to follow leads financially.
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And then the last thing is he has a goal in his writing. Now you could say it's an orderly account, right?
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You already said that. He wanted to produce an orderly account, but he has a reason why he wants to produce an orderly account. He gives us the underlying purpose, and it is verification in verse 4.
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Why was he commissioned by Theophilus? For some level of certainty or verification.
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Luke has that goal of certainty over the truthfulness of his finished product, and he says that in verse 4. He obviously knows the content of what this patron
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Theophilus has been taught. Look with me at verse 4. Put your eyes on it for a second. Most excellent
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Theophilus, end of verse 3, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.
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So he knows what Theophilus has been taught and is going out to confirm or deny whether those things are true or false.
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And it's likely that his commission in this process went something like this. Of course, we don't have it recorded. I'm speculating, but I think it's on pretty good solid grounds considering what
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Luke produces here. I think it went something like this. I want to know if Jesus is really the Messiah King, says Theophilus.
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People have been telling me that he worked miracles, that he died for sins, that he rose again, that he fulfilled all kinds of prophecies.
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Luke, can you go? You got the time and the energy? I'll fund you if you'll go confirm this. I want you to go spend time traveling the world and following up on these leads and let me know, come back and report.
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And so Luke comes back after years of travel and investigation and support by Theophilus to report the gospel of Luke to him.
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This is the content. This is the product of that research. Luke's assessment here at the start.
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Theophilus, this account is trustworthy and is able to grant certainty and confidence in Jesus Christ.
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That's his conclusion. So how in the world do we apply four introductory verses to our lives here in Matawan, Michigan, 2 ,000 years later?
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Well, our faith is a faith based in history, church, that provides evidences and was researched by the culture around them.
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It's possible to have confidence over these historical claims. We are not talking about Perseus slaying the
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Kraken or Muhammad going to Jerusalem and riding a beast into heaven, despite nobody ever even seeing him in Jerusalem.
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There is absolutely zero historical corroboration that Muhammad ever went to Jerusalem, let alone rode a divine magical beast into heaven.
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Or I mean, imagine talking about some gold tablets that Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, misplaced.
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Like, we don't quite...I mean, if an angel hands you golden tablets, you probably ought to hold on to them just for the value of the gold.
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Like, I'm just saying at least the gold value probably would be important. But we're talking about a man named
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Jesus here who claimed He was God in flesh, proved it by claiming He would die and rise again, and then did so.
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He did it. And the one who reported these things to us was tenacious in His investigation.
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So, a major and clear application in this is to trust the account of Luke by faith.
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As we're embarking on this study, as we're starting to dive into Luke here for a season, trust it.
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Keep turning to it. We know that in Scripture we find internal evidences such as fulfilled prophecies,
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Old Testament things that came true in the New Testament. These documents recorded hundreds of years prior to their fulfillment being completed and finished.
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But we also have external evidences of a historical nature. Historians not even knowing what a
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Hittite is until the Bible talks about the Hittites, then they go and they begin to search for the Hittites, and then they find the
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Hittites. You get what I'm saying? Like, the Bible was the first one that ever told us there was a people called
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Hittites, and it's accurate. It's true. We also have modern archaeological evidences, corroborations, verifiable things in our faith.
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Luke was able to research these things, and you also can be encouraged, and I do encourage you to bring your mind and heart to this book.
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I trust it to show us all what is real. And the Christian faith has always been open to critique and testing.
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Now, I've encountered other faiths over the years. As a matter of fact, some of you in the room know this, some of you don't, that I have a master's degree in Islamic studies.
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For a season of my time, I thought that I was going to spend all my life working with Muslims overseas, and then my wife and I were in England during September 11th working with Pakistanis, and everything blew up, and we ended up back in the
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States, and here I am as a pastor. Didn't see that coming. But I remember working through a
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Bible study with a guy who was from Pakistan. He had studied in Madrasa, which is an
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Islamic school. He was one of the guys who had memorized the entire Quran, like from his youth, and he had memorized it all, and he would go to weddings, and they always have somebody recite the entire
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Quran, or have a reciter at all these special events, and so he was one of those guys. Nobody that knew him would ever be glad that he was studying the
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Bible with me and one of my co -workers, but he'd come in secret, and we would study the Bible together. And his interest began in his youth, and he said, my interest to actually identify that I'm not quite sure if Islam is correct is because every time he asked his imam, who was his teacher, he's nine years old in the mosque, sitting there on his little rug reading the
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Quran, and he would raise his hand and ask a question and get backhanded. Just get floored for asking a question.
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Is that our faith, church? Absolutely not. This is open to critique.
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It's open to testing. Other faiths will lock down questions, but the Christian faith has always encouraged people to come and test it.
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Come verify it. Keep your brain on. Right? Always.
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It's never been shut your brain down and just believe. It's always been come and test it.
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Come and see. Is this book true about you? Is it true about your world? Does it reflect what you know in your own heart?
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It says that you're sinful. It says you don't meet your own standard. Is it right? Oh, some of those things just echo in my heart in a way this is like truth.
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Right? It describes me. It defines me. It tells me what is true of my own heart before I can even see it myself.
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It points out envy. It points out sin and gross things in my heart. Before I see it, it sees it.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? The holy word of God has the power. I trust it with you.
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I commend it to you. I'm not afraid of you testing it. I'm not afraid of you studying it. I'm not even afraid that if you want to study this over opposed to any other religious document, go for it.
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I have. I did that pursuit in my youth. I actually read like the I read the
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Quran multiple times, actually twice. I don't want to say like I've read it a ton and it's not fun. It's not fun to read.
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Just clarify that. I've read the book of Mormon. I've read the pillars of Zen. I've read a lot of these other books.
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I've read the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu texts, and nothing spells your heart like this.
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Nothing identifies it. But anyways, other faiths will lock down questions, but we have a verifiable come and test it, come and verify kind of religion.
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Come and see that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord over all. And that's what we're going to be doing in the coming weeks leading up to Christmas.
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Come with a heart to see what Luke uncovered in his orderly reporting. I'm looking forward to going through this trustworthy report of the life of our
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the coming weeks and sporadically over the coming years. God has given us a trustworthy, reliable book that shows us amazing things, the amazing things that he has done and fulfilled in sending us a
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Savior. So put your trust in him and in his word today. The incredible life we're going to be studying through the rigorous reporting of Luke culminates, of course, in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ for us and his resurrection that validates his sacrifice.
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So as we go to these tables, every Sunday morning we take communion together to remember his body broken in our place and his blood shed for us.
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Let's come to the tables rejoicing together. If Jesus Christ is indeed your Savior and your King and you're at peace with others here, then as I say every week, please come feel free to come to the tables to participate in communion with Jesus and with each other.
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And then let's go out from this place. Let's go out from here rejoicing in the solid foundation we have through God's trustworthy word.
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Let's pray. Father, I do thank you for stability in a very unstable world.
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There's so many lies that bombard us. There's so many falsehoods. We live in an age of just instant, just Google it and just see what the world thinks about it or Wikipedia even, just like where we can all just crowdsource the truth.
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Father, we just rejoice that we've got a place to keep turning to, a place to keep coming back to of stability and solid truth in the midst of just a time of just intense disinformation and falsehood that is coming at us from every direction.
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Father, I thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, the truth that lines out for us and just declares openly that we are busted and broken.
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We can't solve it ourselves. And as we come to these lines, we're all testifying of what is true of our own hearts.
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We couldn't do it on our own. We needed somebody to die for us. We needed a sacrifice. We needed
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Jesus Christ, his body broken in our place, his blood shed for us, his righteousness credit to our account where our sin was laid on his shoulders and he paid the penalty for that.
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Father, I pray that you would give us joy and gladness in this glorious truth that Luke set out to just verify what the life looked like and culminates in his death and resurrection and the hope that that has for us.
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Father, that glorious message that has now gone throughout the world and continues to go out, I pray that you would help us to participate in the things that you desire to communicate regarding your word to others and allow
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Luke to be a great, great launching point for us in the coming weeks, couple months here.