The Grand Adventure - [Luke 1:1-4]

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Well, there was a man named William and his wife named Sally, they're from New Haven, Connecticut, and the man's last name was
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Winchester, William Winchester, and he was the firearms magnate and Winchester rifles and Winchester guns, of course he made famous.
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It was the 1880s and his wife wasn't doing very well, so he thought he'd move from Connecticut to guess where?
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California, that's right, San Jose, and off they went. Well, Mr.
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Winchester died and the wife, Sally, thought, you know what, I think
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I could probably live forever on earth if I keep adding to my house.
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It's called the Winchester Mystery House, the Winchester Mansion, and as long as I keep adding rooms to my house,
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I'm going to keep living, and so she thought it was kind of haunted with all the spirits of all the people that were killed by Winchester guns, and so even in the
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San Jose Daily News, March 29, 1895, it reads, strange story, a woman who thinks she'll die when her house is built.
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The owner of the house believes that when it is entirely completed, she will die.
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The superstition has resulted in the construction of a maze of domes, turrets, towers, and other things suitable for a castle.
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Anybody, have you been to Winchester Mystery House? Anyone here? New Haven, Connecticut?
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Oh, we have a few over there. Okay, all right, I will talk to you after the service. Well, today we're going to look at a book where the author seems not to add room to room to room for eternal life, but seems to add chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter, so that you can know about the personal work of Jesus, so that by believing, you might have eternal life.
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We're not talking about a mystery house today, we're talking about the biggest book in all the Bible, the
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Gospel of Luke. So why don't you take your Bibles and turn to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to Luke.
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We, dear congregation, are starting a new book today. It is our practice to preach through books of the
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Bible. A while ago, we finished Ecclesiastes, and I preached through Colossians, and now we're starting the book of Luke.
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I'm super excited. If I wasn't so old, I'd get down into a three -point stance just enthusiastically.
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I've lived long enough to preach Luke. By the way, if I was superstitious, I would say, as long as I keep preaching
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Luke, I'm going to stay alive. So, who knows how long this is going to take?
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I hope the Lord keeps you around for at least 10 more years, as we come to the passage.
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This morning, it will serve as an intro, an introduction to Luke, because our verses that we'll study today, verses 1, 2, 3, and 4 of chapter 1, are in fact the introduction.
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So today, we're going to try to get you to be excited about Luke when you go home today and this week, to try to read
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Luke. We're just going to settle in, and what would the Lord teach us from the
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Gospel of Luke? You're going to see that it's obviously Christ -centered. You're going to see Christ for pardon and for power, both that we could be right before God and live holy lives as Christians.
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You're going to see laws from God. You're going to see the Gospel from God. You're going to see a redemptive flow of history, and it's really going to be great.
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The men that preached yesterday, I think they really did a good job, and one of the best things they did is they hid behind passages that were great passages.
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That's part of the key to preaching. So, I'm going to be hiding behind the Gospel of Jesus according to Luke for week after week and year after year.
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Any guesses by the way? Do you think we can do it in a year or less? Raise your hand. 24 chapters, biggest book of the
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Bible, our biggest book of the New Testament. How about two years? Three? Four?
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Okay, 25. I probably will go faster than what
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I have in the past at different times. It's a narrative. It's a story. It's a
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Gospel, and so I'll probably take bigger sections. Like in Colossians, you could do the first few verses of chapter 3 and it'd be fine.
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We will take bigger sections, but today we're going to look at one sentence, the first sentence, verses 1 through 4.
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It's all one single sentence as we get to know the Gospel of Luke. Speaking of knowing, did you know that Luke wrote more of the
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New Testament than anyone else, even Paul? Because Luke also wrote
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Acts, and so if you put Acts and Luke together, we have about 27 % of the
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New Testament. So, it's going to be interesting to listen to Luke since he has written two very lengthy letters.
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Did you know that Luke has a sequel? I just led on to it. It's the book of Acts and Pastor Steve is preaching through the book of Acts.
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Here's an interesting one that makes me excited about studying Luke. Did you know that there's about 40 % of Luke that's not found in Matthew, Mark, or John?
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There's new things, there's interesting things, there's additional things. Raising of the widow's son, the man with leprosy, the ten lepers, when
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Peter cut off Malchus's ear, the healing of that, and all kinds of parables that are only found in Luke.
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How about the parable of the Good Samaritan? Only in Luke. How about the prodigal son or the prodigal sons?
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Only in Luke. How about the rich fool? It's found in Luke. The two debtors, the rich man and Lazarus.
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I mean, Luke shows us things that no one else shows us. Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, the bloody drops of sweat of the
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Lord Jesus. Jesus on the cross saying, Father forgive them. Found only in Luke. We're going to see so many gems in Luke that every week it's going to be exciting.
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Did you know that in the gospel of Luke there's all kinds of women named? From Mary, to Anna, to Martha, to another
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Mary, to a fortunate lady named Dorcas. I hope there's no
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Dorcas here, but maybe there are. I love you in Christ anyway. Susanna, Lydia, Joanna.
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Did you know that Luke is technically anonymous? It doesn't say written by Luke, but church history has told us, and we can tell by the way it's written, that this is the physician
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Luke, the doctor, the Gentile. I have one son and I named him Luke.
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And I had a friend who said to me, I think Luke's 26 now, 26 years ago, oh I know why you named
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Luke Luke. And I said, why? And he said, well Star Wars of course. And I said, no.
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If I was going to do that I'd name my son Darth. Can you imagine?
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Darth. Darth Maul, come here. I told you to pick up after yourself. And while Luke wrote it, humanly speaking, we know behind Luke, working through Luke, not as some dictation automaton, where the
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Holy Spirit has inspired and given Luke the exact words to write.
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Did you know that this book will remind you of the Old Testament? It's almost, some scholars say it's like a mime, because you look in the
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Old Testament and you'll see pictures of the Passover, and of the Exodus, and of the glory of God.
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And then all of a sudden we see that in the Gospel of Luke. And the better you know your Old Testament, the better you'll know
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Luke. And the better you know Luke, the more you're going to know the Old Testament. And did you know that this is a very challenging book, because when we learn about Jesus, it's going to teach us a lot about discipleship, and how do we respond and follow
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Jesus after we believed. You come to a big book like this and you think, well what's the outline?
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Did you know it's a super easy outline? It's a big book with an easy outline. How simple is that?
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Three sections. Chapter 1 verse 1 through 950, I would just call this the beginning.
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It's the beginning of Jesus' ministry, the beginning of His life. It's the beginning, and that makes sense.
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A book about Jesus, there's a beginning. Chapter 9 verse 51 through 1927,
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Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem. He's setting His face like a flint towards Jerusalem, and so we have the beginning, we have
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Jesus approaching Jerusalem, and then the last part of the Gospel of Jesus, according to Luke, is about the week that precedes
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Christ's death. So it's a simple book in terms of outline the beginning, Jesus on His way to Jerusalem, and the last week of His life in Jerusalem.
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And so let's go to chapter 1 verses 1 through 4 for our passage today, and we are going to basically ask, how is
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Luke written, and why is Luke written? And the reason why I'm going to ask that today is because that's what
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He reveals. He's going to tell us how He wrote and why He wrote, and that's the good intro into the
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Gospel of Luke. How did you write it? Why did you write it? So I'm going to read verses 1 through 4, a single sentence in the
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Greek and in English that is packed full of a beautifully constructed
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Greek language that one person said, this sentence is perfect.
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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 word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, 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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Now if I were to give you that verse, that sentence rather, those four verses, and tell me an outline from the passage, what would that outline be?
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The answer is, how Luke writes, verses 1, 2, and 3, and why does he write?
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You can go back and see it right now. Do you see the how? He knows things have been accomplished among the apostles and him in verse 1, and he's going to write, verse 3, an orderly account.
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So what we have is an orderly account of the ministry and the life of the Lord Jesus. That's how he's writing it.
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It's not just, well, I'm kind of haphazardly writing, I'm just writing with just kind of flow of thought.
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No, orderly. Think physician, think a doctor who's working through things, and that's exactly what happens.
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And do you see the why? Why is the gospel of Jesus, according to Luke, written? Well, it's written in a way so that we have an orderly account, but it's written with this reason that you may have, verse 4, certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
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Luke writes how and why, and that's the outline today. We're going to look at how Luke wrote and why
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Luke wrote, because this is the entryway into all the gospel of Luke. If you get this wrong, you get most of it wrong.
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So we're going to look at three hows and one why when it comes to the gospel of Luke.
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And my purpose really is so that you'll be fired up, so that you'll read Luke and you'll think, oh, just to have week after week the
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Lord Jesus preach from this great gospel. It's going to be exciting. And by the way, as you, 2
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Corinthians 3, verse 18, behold this Jesus, you will in fact be changed. How did
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Luke write? Let me give you three hows. How number one, he wrote with a contagious love for Jesus.
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This is more implied, and we'll get to the explicit reason next, but this is something that I think you can sense.
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He's eager to preach it. He's eager to write it. He's eager for you to know about it.
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And some of you who've taught the Bible to your children, or taught Sunday school, or even from the pulpit, and you have a great passage because you have a great person that you're preaching, it's like,
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I can't wait to get up and preach it. I felt a little bit of that today. I thought, well, my homiletics might bomb today, but the passage is about the right person.
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And I can't wait for you to get excited about Luke because I've been excited about Luke all week. That's exactly what's happening here with Luke.
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There was an eagerness by people to spread this narrative. You see in verse one, in as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative, it's not just Luke.
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Lots of people wanted to write about Jesus. And by the way, if you saw Jesus, were affected by Him, forgiven by Him, healed by Him, you heard
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Him preach, or you heard the Apostles talk about Him, I think you'd be the exact same way. That you'd think, you know what,
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I want to learn, and I want to write this down. I don't want to forget. He's stirring up interest in the people so that they think in a worshipful manner.
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You know what? He's in love with this person that he writes about. I can sense that.
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One secular writer said, being in love with your subject, that is the most indispensable thing for writing good history.
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I mean, if you don't like your subject, you know what it's like reading school. Okay, I was given, I don't know what grade
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I was in. I think it was the third year I was held back in eighth grade. So I had to write on Dwight Eisenhower.
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Fine. But it was assigned to me. I mean, give me a president that I want to pick. I want to pick
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Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders or something like that. And I was given Dwight David Eisenhower.
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He's a fine man, or was a fine man. There's a passion that you'll see as Luke writes, because he wants you to have that passion as well, to trust in the
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Lord and to love Him. He is not saying in verse one, in as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, that they didn't do a good job.
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And so I'll finish the job. I don't think he means that. He just means he loves the subject.
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And now he wants to put something in an orderly fashion so that he can give to this man Theophilus and all those who would read it.
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If I had to ask you this question, you can only read the Gospels or you can only read the epistles.
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Which one would you pick and why? And we don't have to make that choice, of course. But if you could only have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, or Romans through Jude, you could only pick.
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Off to the desert island you go. Which one would you pick? I mean,
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Romans, Galatians, Hebrews. Great, great and great.
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Listen to what J. I. Packer says, and maybe you'll change your mind and say, maybe it should be the Gospels. We should have a constant meditation on the four
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Gospels over and above the rest of our Bible reading. For the Gospel study enables us both to keep our
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Lord in clear view and to hold before our minds our relational frame of discipleship to him.
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Some Christians seem to prefer the epistles as this were a mark of growing up spiritually. But this attitude is a bad sign, suggesting that we are more interested in theological notions than in fellowship with the
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Lord Jesus in person. Packer ends by writing, we should think rather of the theology of the epistles as preparing us to understand better the relationship with Christ that is set forth in the
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Gospel. And we should never let ourselves forget that the four Gospels are, as often been said, the most wonderful books on earth.
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And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to say, the Gospel of Luke that we're going to be preaching through the next several years is going to be good for our souls, because it's going to help tether
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Jesus to the doctrines we love. We love justification, we love sanctification, we love glorification, but they're not these abstract things floating around out there in the ether.
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No, it's because of Jesus, the person. And he's the one that we are, by his merit, we're adopted, we're forgiven, we're children of God, we have the inheritance, it's all because of Jesus.
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So when you're studying the Gospels a lot, I've told my preaching class this, after I read the
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Bible in the morning and then I'm getting ready for the day, I always put on one of the Gospels, it's usually the Gospel of John, and I just let it play in the background and I'm listening and listening and listening, because I'm trying to remember, as much as I love redemption and reconciliation and propitiation and all these big words about theology and what happened at the cross,
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I don't want to divorce those theological truths from the person. And reading the
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Gospels will help us stay on target, because this Gospel is about Jesus and his salvation.
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And if I had to give you one sentence that fires Luke up, that maybe could summarize the whole book, is
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Luke 19 .10, the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.
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And so Luke is very passionate about the
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Savior. If you need your soul stirred, if you don't want to abandon your first love, Revelation chapter 2, this book is for you.
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If you're in trials and difficulties, this book is for you. How did Luke write?
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He wrote with a contagious love for Jesus. Number two, and this is more directly from the text, explicitly, he wrote with an attention to detail.
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He wrote like a historian. He wrote very meticulously and precisely.
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How did he write? Take a look at some of the words in verses 1, 2, and 3.
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Compile, accomplished among us, eyewitnesses, verse 2, ministers of the word, formal language delivered them to us.
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Verse 3, followed all things closely for some time past in order to write an orderly account for you.
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Christianity is a religion built on history. Christianity is a religion built on facts.
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How do you know Jesus is the Messiah? How do you know
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Jesus is alive? How do you know Jesus accomplished everything the Father sent him to?
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Well, that's easy. You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart.
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That won't do for Luke. The subjective, pietistic, inward -looking, subjective state of the person won't work.
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What will work for Luke? Historical accuracy. Details about Jesus.
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When people go to Israel, they say, well, I'm going to the Holy Land and get specially blessed in my pilgrimage at the
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Holy Land. I'm thinking, I just bite my tongue. I mean, I don't want to say everything every time about kind of theological autocorrect.
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People don't invite you places when you do that too often. No, no, no.
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Don't think about it as the Holy Land. Think about it as this. This is where Jesus, we're going to go to a place where Jesus, the man, of course he's the
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God -man, but of course he assumed human flesh, right? The man walked on earth and earned your salvation.
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A historical Jesus. As a matter of fact, the 67th book of the Bible is what? The book of maps.
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We have maps to tell us this is history. This is real. This isn't
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Narnia. This isn't a made -up thing. People are like, well, you know, Christianity is just a set of ideals and love.
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And Jesus didn't really have to be raised from the dead, but it's just that new life principle. We'll hear that a lot next week at Easter by certain people.
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That won't do. That is not correct. Kind of the subjective, amorphous thing floating around.
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When Luke writes, he wants you to know about the historical Jesus, the son of man.
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He is after veracity. He is after history. He is after authenticity.
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Luke is a physician, but maybe we should say to ourselves, Luke, primarily from the first four verses, is a historian.
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Now, I don't know much about history. I wish
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I would have studied it more when I was in school. I don't know why. I don't know what
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I was thinking. But to study history and to be a good historian, it will help you with your
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Bible. It will help you understand this is really happening. These are historical facts.
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A real Sea of Galilee, a real woman with her son sick. There was a great archaeologist, he was trained at Oxford, he was trained in Aberdeen, he was trained in Germany, and his name was
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Sir William Ramsey. So smart, he actually became a Sir in England.
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And he said, you know what, here's my life's goal, to prove that the Book of Acts is a lie.
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Any guesses what happened to him? I'm gonna historically prove that everything he was talking about in the
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Book of Acts is a lie. And so off he went to archaeological site, archaeological site, archaeological site, he ended up getting saved.
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And this man Ramsey said, quote, Luke is a historian of the first rank.
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Not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense.
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He sees as important and critical events and shows their true nature at greater length.
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Luke should be placed along the very greatest of historians. And of course, that's gonna lend itself to Christians saying,
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I can trust the Bible, I can trust the Gospel of Luke. It's going to lend itself to push unbelievers to say, well,
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I can't dismiss this out of hand because history is history. For us as Christians, I think of that song, how firm a foundation ye saints of the
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Lord is laid for your faith in his excellent word like Luke. That was his purpose.
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I'm going to write an orderly account so that you know that you know. I'm gonna hand something down to the next generation so we don't have a few stories here and a few stories here, but a nice orderly account with history involved.
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Chapter 2, verse 2, the first registration when Quirinius was the governor of Syria. He just tying things into history over and over and over.
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Listen to J. Gresham Machen. The student of the New Testament should be primarily a historian.
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That's Luke. This is history. Yes, it's more than history. It's redemptive history. But this is history unfolding.
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Luke is accurate. Luke has a passion for it. He investigates. He goes back to the beginning. He studies everything carefully.
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Take a look at one of the words here that I think is interesting. Verse 2, just as those who are from the beginning.
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That's why, by the way, he goes back to John the Baptist supernatural conception,
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Mary having Jesus, all the way back to the beginning. Unlike Mark, he goes from the beginning where eye witnesses.
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It's a super interesting word. It's where we get the English word autopsy.
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To see plainly, to see clearly. I took a hospital chaplaincy class. Did you take a
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C2? Negative. Okay, we should have taken it. I took a hospital chaplaincy class at seminary and we had to go to LA County Medical Center and watch a couple of autopsies.
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I won't gross you out with all the details, but you just might imagine. I was used to being in the operating room, but in the operating room, they open you up and sew you back together.
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You can see a pulse. Here, they were doing autopsies on two different people and they were trying to see.
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They were trying to examine. They're trying to look at cause of death, reason. They're looking at kidneys. They're looking at blood.
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They're looking at all these things. This is the language here of eyewitness or autopsy.
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A careful examination. One man said, a doctor said, the gospel of Luke is like a carefully performed autopsy of Jesus' life, death, burial, and resurrection.
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And, duh, it should make sense because Luke is a what? A physician. He's a doctor.
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Let's take a look at it close. I mean, how much closer can you get? A few months before,
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I went to see the people performing the autopsy. You could just walk right up, like in the operating room, and just kind of watch.
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And here would be the body and watch. Because of pathogens and other things, we had to stand behind glass.
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For Luke, he doesn't want any glass partitioned so you're far away. He wants you to get right up close so that you can see for yourself that, in fact, this is true.
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And if I'm a believer, I'll still keep believing even though life is difficult. And if I'm not a believer,
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I will believe because we have eyewitness testimony. Don't you like the way he says it later in verse 2?
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Ministers of the Word. We're not over the
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Word. I don't play with the Word. I don't, you know, like some people meddle with the Word. And it's like, make it say whatever you want.
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You know, some of you probably grew up in homes where you think, you know what? I never set anything on top of the
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Bible. The Bible has to be on the top because we don't set things on the Bible. Nothing is over the
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Bible. Anybody here do that? Yeah, you're superstitious bunch. No, but it's a good reminder.
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I try not to either. I tuck things under and think, you know, there's nothing over the Bible. And so what Luke is saying, I'm writing this account in a way that will reflect our submission to God and His Word.
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To reflect Psalm 119, where it's God's Word, comes from God Himself.
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And we're not going to just play games with this and make it say whatever we want. We're not over the Word. We're ministers of the
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Word. And this is important because if there are things wrong in the gospel of Luke, there's no hope for you.
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When you die, that's it. There's no hope for me. Luke's credentials are important and his investigation is important.
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His logical, his orderly defense is important because eternal life is on the line.
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If Jesus isn't this man, this God -man in the gospel according to Luke, we are dead in our sins.
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So it's important not to be over the Word, but to be under the Word. He's writing, verse 3, do you see it?
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An orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus.
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What needs to be said is said. What needs to be said next is said next. What needs to be said in sequence is to be said in sequence.
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And he's writing to an actual historical person, a historical Jesus in historical
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Middle East, historically doing things on earth. If we had a video camera, what would we see?
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Reminds me of Karl Barth, the Viennese Swiss theologian, and he didn't believe in the literal resurrection.
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And so he came to America and the big places were the big media event people were there.
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And somebody asked a question and then Karl Henry, a Christian man, said, working for Christianity Today at the time,
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Dr. Barth, if we could put one of these cameras that's recording you and filming you, videotaping you, in the tomb of Jesus, what would it have recorded?
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The dead body goes in and what would record? And then Barth knew he'd been had because Barth denies the literal resurrection.
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And so Barth said, where are you from again, Karl Henry? He said,
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Christianity Today. And Karl Barth said, you mean Christianity Yesterday? Because we don't believe that anymore.
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If we had a video camera, there would be no difference between what was filmed and what's in Luke.
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It's real. And he's writing to a historical person named Theophilus.
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You guys know Greek. What's Theophilus mean in Greek? Theo is what? Philadelphia is what?
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He's a lover of God. And he must have been a big shot because he's a most excellent
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Theophilus. Probably a Gentile. I think that's probably his real name.
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And he needed to be either grounded in the truth as a believer or confronted with the truth as an unbeliever to believe.
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Some say that here it says most excellent Theophilus and in Acts chapter 1 it just says
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Theophilus and no Christians ever called most excellent. So therefore some say,
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I don't know if it's true or not, it could be true, that the most excellent Theophilus, the unbeliever, reads this historical account of Jesus and becomes a believer.
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And so now Luke writes Acts to not just the most excellent Theophilus, just a Theophilus.
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But it's not just for Theophilus. Would it be a good book for you to read? Ambrose says
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Theophilus means God lover and if you love God it's written to you. That works.
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Plus I needed to quote Ambrose sometime today. So this is a historical book about a historical man who came in time, in the fullness of time, assumes human nature, lives the life on earth that we're supposed to live, meriting our salvation and then dying for our sins.
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Luke is a historian. We just got back from Israel as you know, some of us here at the church. And I think maybe one of my favorite things in all of Israel is the
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Sea of Galilee. Because Greek Orthodox, Baptists and especially
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Roman Catholics can't build a church on top of it. They build churches on top of everything. And just to see the
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Sea of Galilee. And sometimes I think to myself, I don't know if Jesus ever skipped a rock but I'm picking up a rock and skipping it.
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It's real, it's water, it's the place. But maybe my second favorite thing is a stone about this big.
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By the way there's lots of stones in Israel. But this one has an engraving.
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For centuries people have said there's hardly any extra biblical accounts in history that prove what's going on in the
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Bible. For instance Pontius Pilate. Well we know about Pontius Pilate from the Bible and there's some
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Josephus things maybe and some Philo things, a historian, maybe. But I mean Pontius Pilate, it's all made up.
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And guess what they found in 1961? A church built on the
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Sea of Galilee. No, they found a stone that's inscribed to Pontius Pilate from about 30
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AD. It's damaged but it's right there. Luke is writing and answering this question, how am
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I supposed to write this? And he's writing this historical account so that you might have real faith in his subject.
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Number three, how did Luke write? With love for a subject, that's good. With attention to detail as a historian, that's important.
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Number three, he wrote with proper hermeneutics. He wrote with proper hermeneutics.
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Hermeneutics just means interpreting the Bible. How to interpret the Bible? We have different things in the
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Bible, different prophetic books, different proverbs, and we need to take that into account. If you read the newspaper or a love letter from your wife, you'll read it differently, even though both are in English.
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How can Luke help us with proper hermeneutics? Well, the theme of Luke is
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Jesus is coming to seek and save the lost. Everything in this book, as I've said it before, tried to show my hand a little bit, it's the
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Gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news about Jesus Christ according to Luke. So, guess what most of this entire book is going to be about?
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You and how to live daily. You'll get some of that, that's true, you'll understand discipleship, that's true, but this is account of who
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Jesus is. Let me show you a couple examples. Turn to Luke chapter 4.
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Here's how I read the Bible if I'm not careful, and if you're not careful, we like that little book called
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Where's Waldo? And you have to try to find a little creature on every page, and where's
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Waldo? And you can do it with pretty small children, and pretty small grandchildren, where's that Waldo? And so as Sinclair Ferguson says, we come to the
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Gospels and the Bible, and we try to find where's Mike? Where's Mike in the
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Gospel of Jesus according to Luke? I'm on every page, aren't
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I? So, instead of saying, listen, we want to try to figure out how to live a moral life, and an ethical life, and all that stuff, that will come and we'll see some of that.
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But primarily, and most importantly, we have this book about who Jesus is. If you go to Luke chapter 4, here's an example of how
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Luke will help us understand the Bible, and understand the Gospels, and help us hermeneutically.
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And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, Luke chapter 4, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the
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Spirit. Another passage says, impelled, Matthew does, for 40 days being tempted by the devil.
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And he ate nothing during those days, and when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, if you're the
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Son of God, command this stone to become bread. Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone.
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And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, in a moment of time, and said to him, to you
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I will give this all this authority, and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I will give it to whom
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I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. And Jesus said, it is written, second time he said that, you shall worship the
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Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. He took him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you're the
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Son of God, throw yourself down from him, from here, for it is written. Now look at that, he's quoting,
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Satan's quoting, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.
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And Jesus said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune.
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I think you know the passage, and many of you have heard it taught rightly, and some may be wrongly. There's a book that's entitled,
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Right Doctrines from the Wrong Texts of the Bible. Could we look at this passage and say, do you know what,
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I think this is about overcoming temptation, and Jesus, how did Jesus overcome temptation?
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He hid God's Word in his heart, he memorized Deuteronomy, and he didn't want to sin against God, so he knew
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God's Word, and the key for us to overcome temptation, is to hide God's Word in our heart. Is that a key to overcoming temptation, by the way?
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Yeah, hide God's Word in your heart. But what's he after here? First of all, our mind should have kind of, maybe smoke coming out, when we think, wait a second,
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I pray, lead me not into temptation. Is that how you pray the Lord's Prayer? Lead us not into temptation.
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Hear the Holy Spirit, let Jesus to temptation. This must not be about me, this must be about Jesus.
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This is not simply, how do you overcome temptation? It's this, watch and observe your congregation through the eyes of Luke, because if Jesus fails, and is tempted, and succumbs to that temptation, you're all going to hell.
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Behold your salvation, here's your hero, here's your Savior, will he say no to temptation?
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Adam was tempted and failed. Eve tempted and failed.
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Israel in the wilderness tempted and failed. David on a rooftop tempted and failed. When was the last time you were tempted, or I was tempted and failed?
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Isn't there anyone who can be the kind of man, who will obey God, and not have a curse on him, for disobedience?
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Where's the Savior? Where's the one who can rescue people? And if Jesus is a sinner, well then how can he rescue anyone, because he'd have to take care of himself.
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And you know what Luke does? Here's a key, take a look at chapter 3, the end of it. You're like, genealogy verse 23, genealogy, shmeneology, what's going on with all these people?
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Guess what? It starts off with Joseph in verse 23, and it ends up with verse 38, the
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Son of Enos, the Son of Seth, the Son of Adam, the Son of God. Think Adam, think
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Adam, think Adam, think Adam. He switched around the genealogy, so it ends with Adam.
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So when you hear temptation, you think of Adam. Of course,
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Adam was tempted in a beautiful garden, and Jesus in the wilderness. We have to be careful that we don't try to run to the gospel of Jesus, according to Luke, and find us everywhere.
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Will it affect us? Yes. Let me give you another example. Go to Luke chapter 17.
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When Thanksgiving comes up, this is the passage that people love to teach, the Thanksgiving passage,
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Luke 17. How can Luke help us be better interpreters of the Bible? I give you two examples.
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Here's the second example. First one is, let's make sure we understand it's about Jesus and think bigger than us, bigger than where's
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Waldo. Where's Jesus accomplishing redemption is a better question than where's Waldo. Verse 11 of chapter 17.
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On the way to Jerusalem, he's passing along between Samaria and Galilee, and as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers.
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I had an old pastor that couldn't speak English that well. I can't either, but he'd always say ten leopards.
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Ten lepers who stood at a distance and lifting up their voices saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
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And of course, leprosy affects your vocal cords, and it's just like they're all gurgling together. Have mercy on us.
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When he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priest. And as they went, they were cleansed.
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And one of them, when he had saw that he was healed, turned back praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.
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Now, he was a Samaritan. We're not the ten cleansed. We're the nine. Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner.
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And he said to him, rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well. Could we talk about being thankful for what the
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Lord Jesus has done from that passage? I think we could do that more here than we could talk about temptation found in Luke 4.
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But what's the bigger point? What does Luke want us to know? Well, I ask you a question. How many times has a leper been healed in the
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Old Testament? Miriam, wasn't she healed? Yeah.
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Who else was healed? Seven. I went to the Jordan River last time.
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It wasn't with this group, but we went to the Jordan River. And there's Jordan. Here's the Jordan River. And there were people in there getting baptized.
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And I saw one person baptize someone seven times, dunking. I thought,
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I'm going to make Pastor Steve start doing that when he's baptizing people seven times. It's a perfect number. And Naaman was dunked seven times to cure his leprosy.
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What's my point? We go to Luke, and we're immediately thinking, I just should be more thankful. I think that's the second point of this.
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But what's the first point? How do you know Jesus is the Messiah? He's kind.
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He's nice. He's barefoot. Has a staff. Chapter seven, turn back to chapter seven.
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And I give you the answer, because Luke is a hermeneutical genius. And he is going to make sure that the spotlight is on Jesus.
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This is not a three ring circus, and you don't know where to look. There's one ring, and it's not a circus.
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The spotlight is on Jesus. Chapter seven, verse 18. The disciples of John reported all these things to him.
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And John, we're talking about John the Baptist, calling two of his disciples said to him, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the
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Lord saying, Are you the one who is to come? Or shall we look for another? And when the men had come to him, they said,
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John the Baptist has sent us to you saying, Are you the one? Are you the Messiah? Are you the one from the
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Old Testament who's prophesied to come and be prophet, priest, and king? Or shall we look for another?
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If you're not it, just tell us. We're wasting our time. In that hour, he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits.
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And on many who were blind, he bestowed sight. Sounds like some good credentials of the
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Messiah to me. You want to know if there's authenticating power in supernatural miracles? Yes, sounds like it's the
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Messiah to me. And he answered them. Go and tell John the Baptist what you have seen and heard.
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The blind receive their sight. Who can do that but the Messiah? The lame walk.
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Who can do that to people except the Messiah? And here we go. Lepers are cleansed.
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And the deaf hear the dead are raised up. The poor have good news preached for them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
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Luke is helping us interpret the Bible so that we're thinking when Jesus does these things, we should be saying to ourselves, only
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Jesus can do that. So when I get to chapter 17, Jesus taking care of the lepers, I'm thinking that's the one.
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I'm thinking that even in the midst of trials and health issues and personal issues and everything that we all go through, am
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I just like a loon for believing all this? You ever just think to yourself, what's going on?
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I believe in Jesus. I've had fellowship with him and the saints and things come into my life.
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And then I just realized kind of that doubt creeps in, kind of that lack of assurance creeps in.
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You're like, what is going on? Luke is written in an orderly account so that you might say to yourself, of course, it's got to be
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Jesus. Of course, he's the Messiah. Because who else does that? These crazy TV preachers, they lengthen legs and they cure people of post nasal drip, but they don't cure leprosy.
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Jesus touches the leper in Matthew chapter eight. Who does that? So when you're reading the Bible and you're reading
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Luke, you, dear Christian, should say this. Well, sometimes I doubt and sometimes
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I'm not so sure about things. When I read this orderly account put together by Luke through the Holy Spirit, he has to be the one.
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If there's no God -man, I'm dead. I'm putting all my cards in, all my money in.
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I'm laying it on the line. It's all or nothing. Because only this God -man, who could be our representative as man and our substitute as divine, only the
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God -man who can raise dead and heal lepers and give life to the blind, he has to be the Messiah.
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I have no other choice. And so on those dark days where you think, you know, the world is telling me all this and what about all these answers
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I don't have questions even for? Where am I going to go? The answer is Luke.
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And Luke wants you to see. Not where you are in here because you're just gonna mess it up like I would mess it up.
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No, but what about Jesus and how does he deal with people? Luke helps with hermeneutics.
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Well, that's the how. Why did Luke write, I'll see you next week?
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The answer is going to be preview for your assurance. If you're not a believer so that you believe and if you're going through difficulties so that you have assurance.
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Dear congregation, would you read Luke this week? 24 chapters. Listen to Luke online and I think you will say to yourself,
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Jesus Christ is the hero. I think you'll say with John MacArthur, the central theme of both the
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Old and New Testament is the Lord Jesus. Everything speaks about him and this was in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus, our
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Lord. Luke helps us keep focus on the
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Redeemer. Bow with me please. Father in heaven, thankful for the gospel of Luke.
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Thankful for Luke and what you did in his life. I pray for those that are here today that you would give them a real sense of how holy you are and what your law requires.
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And as Elder Scott said, it requires perfection. So what do we do when we're not perfect?
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Well, left to ourselves we would be like the angels just that have fallen damned. No hope.
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But we have in our hands the gospel of Jesus according to Luke and we see from his virgin birth to his resurrection and exaltation, he is the right one.
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He is the Savior. He saves sinners just like us. So grant unbelievers here today saving faith.
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And for Christians, dear Father, would you give them a hunger for Luke, a desire to learn about Jesus?
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And Father, would you protect us from somehow the easy sin of detaching Jesus from the doctrines we love?