Episode 121: A Biography of Luke

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I am your host, Allen Nelson. I'm one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas.

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ProvidenceBaptistAR .com if you want to know more about us. On this episode of the

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Rural Church Podcast, we'll be examining the life of Luke. Luke is the writer of Acts and the

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Gospel of Luke. Some would say also Hebrews, but I'm not even wading into that argument.

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It's not really the point of today's episode. What we want to do is consider who

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Luke is and think about his life and why we should imitate his life.

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For example, in Philippians 3 .17, Paul talks about that the church should imitate him and others who walk according to his example.

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So we should do that. We should think about brothers and sisters who've gone before us in the past and who have been godly and Christ -like and consider their way of life and consider how to implement that in our lives.

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We're going to look at a sermon preached at Providence Baptist Church back in April of 2025.

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This sermon, I cut off a little bit from the front and just a tiny portion from the back, but you're going to listen to an overview of who

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Luke is. It's actually fascinating who he is and then how to consider why his life should impact our lives today.

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I've been encouraged by those who've given feedback on this, and so I hope that you find it encouraging and actually practical and helpful.

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Feel free. Feel free. If you do find it helpful to reach out. If you want, QuatroNelson at gmail .com,

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C -U -A -T -R -O -N -E -L -S -O -N at gmail .com. And without further delay, let's listen in to a life of Luke.

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In the second century, there is a heretic. His name is

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Marcion. Marcion, his heresy was this, that we don't need the

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Old Testament. Let's get rid of the Old Testament. But something else that Marcion did was, he took the

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Gospel of Luke and he chopped it up. And he said, we don't need this stuff. We'll just keep this stuff, kind of like Thomas Jefferson did with the

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Jefferson Bible you've heard of. But this demanded a response from the church.

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And so one of the ways that the church responded is they wrote a little prologue to the

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Gospel of Luke, which is basically, it's not Scripture, but they wrote a little prologue explaining why we need the whole

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Gospel of Luke. And in that prologue, they give us a little bit of information about Luke.

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Now this was written somewhere around 150 A .D. That's not too long after Luke died, less than a hundred years.

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So this is what they say about Luke. They say, Luke was an

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Antiochian, that means he's from Antioch, of Syria, a physician by profession.

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He was a disciple of the apostles and later accompanied Paul until the latter's martyrdom.

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He served the Lord without blame, having neither wife nor children. And at the age of 84, he fell asleep in Boeotia, that's in Greece, full of the

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Holy Spirit. Now can we take all of that as fact? Some of it, perhaps it's legend, perhaps it's distorted, we don't know.

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But I would just make an argument that this document written less than a hundred years after Luke's death, maybe you shouldn't dismiss it too quickly.

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Some of it, as we'll see this morning, is certainly able to be affirmed by the Scriptures.

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So what we're going to do today in this sermon, the best we can, is we are going to piece together

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Luke's life and we're going to see together that Luke's life is worthy of our imitation and that we should be grateful for men like Luke in church history and that men like Luke in church history are worthy of our time to consider.

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We should consider their lives and we should have our lives conformed to theirs as they're conformed to Christ and their lives should spur our lives on to godliness.

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And maybe one more comment. You should want to have a life that spurs others on to godliness.

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I mean, you should think about that right now. Does my life, does my life spur others to godliness?

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Consider. All right. Number one, Luke's Greek. Luke's Greek. In the first book,

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O Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. The first book is the Gospel of Luke.

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The second book is the book of Acts. Luke wrote these two books. And here's something we know for sure.

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We don't have to go to history for this. We know for sure just from reading that Luke knew his Greek.

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R .C. Sproul wrote this, his mastery of language and artistry with words revealed that he was an educated man.

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This was no rough -hewn fisherman, but a talented wordsmith whose mastery of Greek resulted in writings of great beauty.

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Now, I know here in rural Arkansas, we all kind of have a chip on our shoulder about the educated.

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Sometimes we think, well, you know, we don't need no education around here, which a double negative would mean we do need education.

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But anyway, the point is that the idea that God can use educated people, amen, and he does here with Luke.

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So I believe I have a position. It's different than some people, but I think

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I stand with a lot of faithful men in this. I think Luke was a Gentile. There's a reason for that.

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Colossians 4, Luke talks about those of the circumcision party here with him. And then later, he doesn't include

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Luke in that. And then later he talks about Luke. So I actually think that Luke is a Gentile. I know there's arguments that he was a

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Jew, but I think he's a Gentile. That's my position. I think Koine Greek, the reason he's so good at Greek is because Koine Greek is his first language.

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I think it's very plausible that he is, as they wrote in defense of the truth against Marcion, that he is from Antioch.

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I think that's plausible, but that doesn't matter so much. But I think he probably is from there.

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But but what languages you count

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Hebrew and Luke or Hebrew and Greek, Luke, the Gospel of Luke is the 12th longest book, 66 books in the

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Bible. The Gospel of Luke is the 12th longest book. The book of Acts is the 15th longest book.

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Luke wrote a lot. You understand, if you actually put Luke and Acts together into one volume and said this is just one book, then he would have written the longest book in the

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Bible by 4 ,000 words. So the longest book of the Bible, as we count it, is

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Jeremiah. And I don't remember, 33 ,000 Hebrew words or something. Luke and Acts come together like 37 ,000

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Greek words. So when you think about the New Testament, you often think about who?

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You think about the Apostle Paul, you think about, well, you know, the most prolific writer in the New Testament.

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It had to be the Apostle Paul. Now, he did write the most books in the New Testament, but he did not write the most words in the

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New Testament. In fact, Luke beats Paul by 5 ,000 words, even if you give

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Paul the book of Hebrews, which is debatable. But let's say you give Paul, let's say let's say Hebrews was also written by Paul.

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Luke still beats him by 500 words. So Luke and Acts, there's some things about Luke's life we don't know.

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But here's what we do know for sure. We know this Luke and Acts, these just two books, they make up over 27 percent of the

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New Testament by word count. And here's what's fascinating to me. Put this together in your mind.

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Who did God use to write the most words in the

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New Testament? It wasn't Peter, it wasn't Paul, it wasn't

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John. It is a Gentile. It's Luke. And my argument is

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I think this brother is a bit underrated. That's his Greek. Secondly, we'll spend a little longer here.

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Luke's gifts. Number one, Luke's Greek. Secondly, Luke's gifts.

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What kind of man is Luke? He is a gifted man and we'll walk through those together. And Colossians 4 .14,

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Paul says to the church at Colossae, Luke, the beloved physician, greets you, as does

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Demas. Luke was a gifted man. How was he gifted? We'll walk through six of those gifts.

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Number one, he was a doctor. Number one, doctor. Luke's writing style shows that he was educated and intelligent.

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And we see in the text there, Colossians 4 .14, Paul calls him a physician. Now, I don't want you to confuse that with like today's physicians and all that in terms of education.

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But certainly, he was gifted in that field. Gifted enough that when he calls Luke, one of the monikers to refer to Luke is he's the beloved physician.

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Maybe they nicknamed him doc or whatever. And some people would argue that he was invaluable to Paul's journey.

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You know, Paul had all these physical ailments. And some would argue, well, one of the reasons that Luke was able to travel with him and help him is because he was a physician.

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But I can make an application for you. All of you need to listen to this. No matter what your line of work, wherever you find yourself, whatever kind of work you're in, right?

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Whatever work that is, you should consider how you will leverage that for the kingdom of Christ.

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You understand? Luke leveraged his work for the kingdom of Christ. Let me put it to you this way.

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It's not just pastors or deacons or missionaries who are used by God to further the kingdom of Christ.

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It's all of you who are in Christ. Consider how to use your job for that.

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Secondly, second gift he had, and this we know from the scriptures.

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Secondly, he was a historian. Daryl Bach says this, Luke is a first class ancient historian.

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Let me make a comment for a moment about inspiration, because I think this is important. We should know this as a church.

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God, the Holy Spirit, perfectly inspired the writings of Luke. Inerrant, infallible, every jot, every tittle.

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But the mechanism, the process of inspiration is not Luke falling into a trance and then just waking up and then he writes

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Luke and Acts. God's sovereignty, friends, does not make us robots.

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Luke uses his gifts and he applies them. So he researches, he interviews, he investigates.

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Some people think he actually interviewed Mary, the mother of Jesus, because it's only in the Gospel of Luke that we have those accounts.

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Right? We'll look at that more. It's only in the Gospel of Luke that we have the account of the birth of John the Baptist and the full.

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I mean, I know in Matthew we have the account, but we have this full narrative of the birth. How does

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Luke know that? Is it possible the Holy Spirit just just put that on his mind? Yes, that's certainly possible.

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But it also seems to be rather plausible that he did some interviews and did his due diligence.

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He was a faithful historian. He was knowledgeable of if you look in Luke and Acts, one of the places that we can go to to prove the veracity of the scriptures is to go to the book of Luke and Acts and say, look at these places, look at these names, look at these events.

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Luke is dead on in all of these things because he's a careful and faithful historian.

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And then, of course, we unapologetically affirm that through all of his due diligence, the

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Holy Spirit is at work. He's at work. He's at work in such a way that what Luke produces is the very word of God.

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Now, let me make another application for you. Sometimes you look at the Christian life as a mystic.

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You want to say, I'm not going to do something unless I get a feeling, unless I get a sign.

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But actually, the Lord is calling you to go forward, right, to serve the kingdom with the gifts you have.

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In the words of the great theologian Nike, just do it, right? You've got the gifts. You've got the wherewithal.

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You've got the ability. Stop looking for a sign. Stop looking for a feeling and go forward and do what it is that you know the

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Lord has commanded you in his word. Make sense? Do that. Trusting his word, following his way.

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Thirdly, you're going to think I'm doing a little Jesus Duke here. I'm not. This is true.

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This is right. And we really need to consider this third gift, the greatest gift,

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I would argue, that Luke had. Number one, doctor. Number two, historian. Third gift, repentance.

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He had the gift of repentance. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean that the gift of repentance is a gift of God.

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Well, why would I say that? Well, let's look at our let's look at the book that we're going through. Acts chapter 11.

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Turn to Acts 11. Acts chapter 11 and verse 18.

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Acts chapter 11 and verse 18. Consider this. Luke faithfully records this narrative.

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He says, when they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified God, saying, then to the Gentiles also,

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God has granted repentance that leads to life.

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Friends, this passage is not referring to Luke directly, but it does teach this.

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Repentance is not something that you reach way down inside yourself, all the way down to your toes.

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And you're able to just start and work hard enough and bring it out. And then you repent. Repentance, rather, is a gift of sovereign grace.

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Now, we don't know when Luke was converted and we don't have the story and the testimony, but we do know this.

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We know this. There's a point in his life when God gifted him repentance and he turned to the

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Lord Jesus and he turned away from his sin. And Luke and Acts together, if you put them together, 24 chapters in Luke, 28 chapters in Acts.

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So that's 52 chapters. In those 52 chapters, 28 times, so an average of more than once every other chapter,

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Luke uses words like repent, repentance or turn.

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He knew what repentance was and he wrote about it. In fact, if you flip over to Acts 26, all three of those words, repent, repentance and turn is in Acts 26 in one verse.

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Acts 26, verse 10. Luke was gifted repentance. Luke knew what repentance was.

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Acts chapter 26, verse 10. Acts 26, verse 10.

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Sorry, that's not right. It's verse 20. Acts chapter 26, verse 20.

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I'll start in verse 19. Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea and also to the

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Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

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So this is Paul's testimony. Just listen to me for a second. The demand of God that lies upon all men everywhere, whether you're a little boy or a little girl or an older man, an older woman or somewhere in between, the demand of God that lies upon all men everywhere is that you must repent from your sins.

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There must be a change of heart and mind as to who you are, as to who

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God is, as to the wickedness and transgressions that you have committed against a holy and righteous

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God. And there must be a turning away from sin in both thought and action and heart and desire, a turning away from these things.

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Except the question is, how would a person so steeped in sin and so full of self ever turn away from their sin?

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Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought and just considered the absolute miracle of conversion?

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Have you ever thought how such a, if you know your heart at all, if you're a Christian and you know yourself at all, have you ever considered how in the world, why are you here this morning?

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Have you ever thought how in the world would you turn from all the lust and lies and evil and self -promotion and self -righteousness in the world today?

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How would you ever turn from those things left to the left to yourselves? You wouldn't.

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But God. But God. The Lord Jesus.

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He preached repentance, you know, that mark 115 repent.

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For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew tells us in Matthew 4, 17, that from that time, 40 went to preaching repentance.

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Friends. If you have never repented of your sins.

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You are not a Christian. The message of the gospel comes with a required response.

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The message of the gospel is God is God. You are not. He made you in his image, but you are lost and ruined by the fall and guilty of Adam's sin.

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But listen, you only exasperate the issue by continuing stubbornly in your rebellion against God, forsaking his ways, breaking his commandments, dishonoring his glory.

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And then 2000 years ago, though, the Lord Jesus came, sent, born of the

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Virgin Mary, truly God and truly man. And he was free from sin's curse. And his life honored

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God in every way. He perfectly fulfilled all righteousness. And he marched his way, as it were, that we celebrate today in Palm Sunday to Jerusalem.

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And in Jerusalem, he was tried as a sinner, though he was not accused falsely of foolish things.

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And yet Pilate said things like this. There's no guilt in this man. And there was no guilt. Not only was there no guilt, there was perfect righteousness.

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And on the cross, God punished Jesus as though he was the unrepentant one, even though he had no sins of his own to repent of.

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The wrath of God fell upon the sun in the stead of ruined sinners, and on the third day he rose again from the dead.

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This is the gospel, friends. And I'm telling you that this message requires a response, faith and repentance, turning to Christ.

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And we might theologically say it the best way to consider is as you're turning to Christ, you're turning away from sin and self and the world and the flesh.

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And Luke did this by the grace of God and became a believer. We don't know when it seems plausible as one of the early that he was one of the early believers in the city of Antioch.

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We don't know. And it's just speculation. But here's what we do know. Here's what we do know. He was a

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Christian and the same Jesus that Luke trusted in is presented to us before us this morning at Providence Baptist Church on this

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Palm Sunday, 2025. And this Jesus is presented with the same response required.

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Will you repent? I'd like to just say it till I'm blue in the face, but some of you in here, you need to repent.

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You need to turn from your sin and you need to turn to Christ right now. You believe the lie that your sin is great.

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No one ever is ever going to find it out. No one's going to know the secret. I love it too much. But the call of God to you today, because he commands all men everywhere to repent.

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The call of God to you today is to turn from your sin, turn from your ways, see the law that you have transgressed, see the fierce holiness and the consuming fire of God that will punish evildoers in a place called hell for all eternity.

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But here today, his grace and voice of mercy and turn from your sin and believe on Christ and be a

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Christian, come to Christ. And if you do, you'll be able to say like the rest of us.

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God was gracious to me. Amen. The gift of repentance, fourthly.

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He was a doctor, historian, repenter, fourthly preacher. Well, what?

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Hear me now, one is a bit speculation. In Second Corinthians 818,

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Paul says that with Titus, we're sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel.

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Now, there are commentators who believe that Paul there is talking about Luke. That he's saying

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Luke is famous for his preaching the gospel. Now, we don't know that for sure. Could could be. I don't know. But I'll share with something we do know.

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Go to Acts 16. This was our Sunday school this morning. Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16 and verse 10.

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Here's what we do know. And when Paul had seen the vision immediately. Notice the pronoun there.

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We so Luke's writing, so Luke is including who himself. So and when

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Paul had seen the vision immediately, by the way, let me just say the pronouns are going to be important in this point. So let's focus in and remember, every word of God is breathed out.

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And we got to love pronouns, too. So when Paul had seen the vision immediately, we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to do what?

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Preach the gospel. So you have four men here. You have Paul, Silas, Timothy, and then you have Luke. And they're going to cross the

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Aegean Sea and they're going to wind up in Philippi. And what are they going to do? Well, I'll tell you this. It's not medical missions.

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Now, I'm not trying to disparage that actually in this point. I'm just saying it's interesting. Right. That Luke is a physician and he has ample opportunity to write here.

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Hey, we set up a clinic and we share the gospel while attending to medical needs. Again, it's not my point to say that that's bad.

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OK, I'm not I'm not disparaging that. And I have participated in that. And I would again. I'm not saying that's bad, but it is my desire this morning to put a magnifying glass, a high priority, if you will, on this.

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That they went there to preach the gospel. In our text, that's one word, euangelizo, it's where we get the word evangelism from.

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Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke were gospel preachers.

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There's lots of things that we can do today that and maybe some are right and some are probably wrong.

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We don't have to get into all that today. But there's a lot. There's a big umbrella that we talk about. We're doing missions.

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We're doing evangelism. A lot of things that that people can do that might fall under that category of missions.

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But can I just say this from the text? There is no higher priority than churches to send out men to preach the gospel, to go to places and declare that Christ is king, that judgment is coming, that mercy is offered.

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Repent and believe the gospel. This is what we're called to do. This is missions. And Luke was a gospel preacher.

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Fifthly, he's a theologian. One commentator notes this, we're talking now about Luke's gifts.

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One commentator notes, Luke can be identified as one of the church's earliest biblical theologians.

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Well, why would that commentator say that? Because Luke arranges his material in Luke and Acts in a special way by the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit. And he orders it in such a way to show us time and again that Christ is all, that he is

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God, that he is Lord, that he is king, that the Old Testament is not a book just written about Israel.

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It's a book written about Christ. It's a book that points to Jesus. The Old Testament is getting us ready for Jesus and the need for Jesus and the promise of Jesus.

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And he fulfills all of these things. I might call him a great writer of covenant theology.

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Why would I say that? There's so much to prove this point. Let me give you an example. Matthew, writing for a specific argument, traces the genealogy of Jesus back to who?

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Abraham. Luke traces the genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam.

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Why is he doing that? He's doing that to show us that Jesus, Adam's called the

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Son of God. Jesus is called the Son of God. Adam messed up. Jesus succeeded. Adam failed.

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Jesus is the one who we need, the true and better Adam. That's what he's showing us, y 'all.

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He's a great biblical theologian. And he's showing us that Jesus came, tracing his lineage back to Adam.

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He came not just for the Jews, but for Jews and Gentiles, the entire human race lost and ruined in Adam.

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That's what Jesus came to be Savior of. He gives us the account of Jesus's teaching.

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The other gospel writers don't. He gives us the account of Jesus's teaching on the road to Emmaus. What an amazing thing,

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Luke 24, that the Old Testament is about Christ. He shows us that preaching in Acts, that it flows out of the

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Old Testament and that the church is the kingdom of God. Consider Acts 28, the last chapter, last chapter of Acts and the last few verses of the book of Acts in Acts 28.

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Listen, listen to what Paul is doing here. It's interesting. We're going to get into this more in a few weeks. But he says, therefore, let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the

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Gentiles. They will listen. He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the

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Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. I'm going to tell you something.

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If you've never considered these realities, you need to today. And you talk to me more about it. But the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom that the

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Gentiles are entering into, it's not 17 different kingdoms. It's one kingdom.

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Defense. First of all, you have Acts 16, 10, which we were there just a minute ago, and we noticed, importantly, the pronouns.

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And you'll find the pronouns again in Acts 16 and verse 11.

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And then you'll find them again in verse 14. One who heard us heard who heard us.

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One who heard us was a woman named Lydia. OK, verse 15, you find it again after she was baptized in her household as well.

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She urged us saying and then give their statement. And then at the end, she prevailed upon us.

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So it's us, us, us, us, us, Luke's there. But when you get to the end of Acts 16, it's interesting.

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Acts 16, verse 40. So they went out of the prison and visited

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Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed.

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Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because we've gone from we to they. And then you don't pick up a we again until Acts chapter 20.

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Now, let's see. I think that's important to location. Acts chapter 20, verse five.

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These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas. But we sailed away from where?

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Philippi, we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread.

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So so there's like it's like a seven year gap, right? It's like a seven year gap or so where Luke or where Luke has.

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He was with Paul and now he's not with Paul. OK, but where is that where he's picked up again?

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Where in the city of Philippi. So what is Luke doing for these seven years when he's in Philippi?

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Well, I don't think it's a stretch at all that it's quite probable that he is the one left in Philippi to do what?

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Pastor the new church to be one of the pastors, at least at the very least.

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He is a representative of Paul in some way helping to establish that church. They weren't in Philippi that long.

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They were there. They were preaching. They got put in prison. And then and then they're they encourage the brothers in Lydia's house.

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That's where the church meeting and then they leave. So so who's going to you understand that they weren't just about evangelism, but evangelism was tied to what the care for the church.

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And a lot of people get this wrong today. A lot of people want to separate evangelism over here. Discipleship's over here.

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Church membership is over here. You care about the church over there. And then, well, I don't care about the church.

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I just care about missions. No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand New Testament Christianity. It's all together.

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You separate these things. It goes together into one mission. So there's evangelism.

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And as evangelism is happening, Paul is caring about the church so much that he leaves his friend in Philippi to be the pastor there to shepherd that flock.

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In fact, some would say in Philippians 4, 3, when Paul talks about his true companion to work out the conflict in that church, that he's actually talking to Luke.

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Now, you say, well, I'm just not sure about that. Fine. I can say this. Luke writes with a very pastoral heart.

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How so? Read his writings. He loves the church. He loves the outcasts.

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Commentators make the point that in Luke, you deal with the women a lot in Luke. He deals with children.

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He deals with, hey, you know, and Luke, Luke is the writer that you know about the story of Zacchaeus, right?

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The wee little man, right? You're singing that song. He's a greedy tax collector, but what happens?

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Jesus calls him out of that tree. And saves him. Luke loves the mission of Christ, and this is seen beautifully in Luke and Acts.

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He had the heart of a pastor. I'm just trying to show us here as we learn about Luke that he was gifted by God in a number of ways.

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We see this. We see this in Luke and Acts, and he is worthy of our imitation. OK, so Luke and his

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Greek and his gifts. Thirdly, this morning, let's consider Luke's godliness.

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And there are a few things about Luke that I want to particularly commend to you. Number one, his knowledge of the scriptures.

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His knowledge of the scriptures. Now, if you have this weird view of inspiration that Luke didn't have to know any of the

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Bible and that and that the Holy Spirit just zapped him and they just wrote it out, well, then this might be kind of weird to you.

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But I'm actually going to make the argument that that's not the way that God works, though God is free to work that way.

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And he can work that way. But the way that God ordinarily works, like our confession says, is through means.

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And so Luke knew his Bible. Luke was a brother who loved the scriptures and he understood the

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Bible. I'm just going to tell you this morning, a part of me wishes that we could do it this way. I really

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I do. I wish that we could do it this way. I wish that before I went to bed every night, I could pray and I could take my

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Bible and I could set it underneath my pillow and I could say, oh, God, tonight as I sleep, please let all the words in the

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Bible seep into this thick skull of mine. So that I know your word better. Oh, that would be great, wouldn't it?

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That's not how God has chosen to get his word inside of our hearts. It's not by osmosis.

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Rather, it is by studying the scriptures like Dr. Luke, knowing what the

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Bible says, seeing Christ in them, memorizing them, meditating on them.

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Some of you, I'm just going to tell you, this isn't me taking a sledgehammer and trying to break your toes. I'm just saying some of you we've we've we've set before before you very easy, lower level ways to memorize scripture.

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Some of you don't take seriously our memorizing scripture. But you should, that's not me trying to punch you in the face on Sunday morning, that's me just telling you, why don't you care about these things?

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We should love these things. We should sharpen one another in the truth. We should prioritize the preaching of the scriptures.

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Hey, we should be better theologians. I don't like that term theologian, a theologian. R .C. Sproul wrote a book one time.

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It's called Everyone's a Theologian. You know what he means? You know, I kind of say in jest, the great theologian Nike or whatever.

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What I mean is every person I quote is a theologian. It's just are you a good theologian or a bad one?

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Not are you a theologian? So why wouldn't we want to be good theologians? Why wouldn't we want to know our

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Bibles better? Secondly, his love for the church. There are reasons to believe that he was a member of the church at Antioch when

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Paul and Barnabas were there. He knows a lot about Antioch, by the way, and so that would lead us to believe those things.

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We've already covered, you know, his stay in Philippi. But even if you're like, those are I don't know if I agree with that. OK, here's what we do know.

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Luke loved local churches. We know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. How do we know that?

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Because we read his writings. He is very careful to detail many aspects of the life of the church in Acts.

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He shows us the church, y 'all. It wasn't just about showing up on Sunday. Yes. So so we have kind of like an either or thing today in evangelicalism.

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We have like those people who say, don't go to church, be the church. And then we have the other people like, no, no, no, you just got to go to church.

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No, it's not an either or thing, though. It's a both and we gather. The church gathers.

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And in the church, for lack of a better term, we do life together, if you will, life on a life throughout our lives.

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Why? We see that in the book of Acts. We see fellowship recorded and prayer and doctrine and preaching and baptism and the

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Lord's Supper. Luke shows us all these things because he loves the church. And he's not afraid to show us the bad things about the church, the conflict .

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For example, he shows us the death of Ananias and Sapphira. You won't talk about church discipline.

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That's a tough one. God kills him. He told he shows us the conflict in Acts chapter six of, you know, serving the widows and the church is bickering about it.

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He shows us the warning in Acts 20, where Paul says that he warns that even from the elders will become wolves.

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He shows us persecutions, Herod's persecution and those things. But in all this, why does he show it?

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He shows us that despite the church's internal trials and outward persecution, what he is doing is he's encouraging us in Acts that the church continues on.

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The kingdom grows and it cannot be stopped. And the church is very precious to God.

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In Acts chapter 20, Luke is careful to record Paul's words that God purchased the church.

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How? For a million dollars. If you bought something for a million dollars, would that be valuable to you?

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Yes, it would. What if you bought it for five billion dollars? Would that be valuable to you? Yes, it would.

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God didn't purchase the church for a million dollars or for five billion dollars. He purchased her,

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Acts 20 says, with his own blood. There's nothing more valuable than that.

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All right, friends, Luke was a churchman. Some of you young people listen to children, teenagers, even younger adults.

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Please listen to me. Whenever you want to assess a person's life and you want to say.

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Should I listen to this person, should I listen to this person as a teacher and as a preacher, should this person speak into my life about godliness?

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Should I be influenced like a person like this by a person like this? Here's here's the test.

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Use Luke as a measuring stick. Are they saturated with Christ like Luke?

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Does Christ saturate their ministry like Luke? Do they love the church like Luke?

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Do they see it as precious to God and worthy of giving your lives to?

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When you're thinking about, am I going to allow this person implicitly or explicitly to lead me, to guide me, to point me to Christ?

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Do they pass this test? And then let me say something to the rest of us. Could someone say these things about you?

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Could they say them about me? This person is saturated in Christ.

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This person bleeds bibling. This person just won't shut up about Jesus. This person loves the church.

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This person has given their lives to the church and its advancement and to the cause of Christ for his eternal glory.

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Dads, if your children were to use the Luke measuring stick for you, would you meet that test?

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Again, that's not to discourage you, it's to lead you, to grow you, to help you all by the mercy and grace of the

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Holy Spirit. Thirdly, his knowledge of Scripture, his love for the church.

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Thirdly, Luke was a godly friend. Now, we don't know how often exactly

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Luke and Paul were together, but we do know they were together several times. Think about that for just a second.

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It could not have been easy to be Paul's friend. The Jews hated him and the

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Gentiles hated him. I mean, it's not hard to imagine you're walking down the street with Luke or Luke is walking down the street with Paul and all of a sudden here comes a rock at your head, right?

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Or then there's Roman officials just around the corner and what do they want to do? They want to arrest you and throw you into a

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Roman prison. Or there's a Jewish mob. Oh, hey, look at those guys. What do they want to do?

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They actually want to kill you. Oh, there's a Gentile riot. Hey, what do they want to do? Hey, actually, they want to kill you.

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It's amazing to me, Paul essentially, I mean, it is not recorded in Scripture, but essentially Paul's like, hey,

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Luke, why don't you get on this boat with me? I can imagine a boat with Paul out in the ocean.

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What's the worst that could happen, right? It couldn't have been easy to be Paul's friend, but Luke is with him.

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Many journeys, a faithful brother, and so much so that some of the last words that we have recorded of the

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Apostle Paul is found in 2nd Timothy 4 .11. And he says this, Luke alone is with me.

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One commentator notes when everyone else deserted Paul during his last

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Roman trials, Paul wrote, only Luke is with me. A dear friend of reliable and trustworthy character,

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Luke stayed with Paul to the bitter end when Nero's diabolical judgment hung over his head.

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And he was probably there when the sword fell at the lonely spot along the Ostian Way. Wow.

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Find a friend like Luke. A few years ago, I was in a very difficult situation.

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And I found I got a text from a friend, grammatically, it needs some help, but I'll read it to you exactly how it was sent.

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We with you till the end, brother. Well, I can say friends like Luke are a blessing.

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Find a friend like Luke or how about this? Be a friend.

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Like Luke, we all want a friend like Luke, right, you want that, you want that dude that's going to hang out with, he's going to be there and you know when you need the buddy, he's right there behind you.

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But you don't just need to find a friend like Luke, be a friend like Luke, be faithful to Christ's cause.

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And in so doing, let's make loyalty great again. How about that? Be a friend who motivates others to godliness, be a friend who makes others bold, encourages others to be bold in the

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Lord. Some of you, hey, listen, teenagers, some of you, I'm just going to tell you, I'll be nice, but just listen, some of you get around with one another, you get around other teenagers and you do dumb things because you encourage one another in stupidity.

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I was a teenager once like, how does he know? Does he have a lot of wisdom? Well, I was just know that not long ago

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I was a teenager and all these teenagers get together and you get together with one another and you do dumb things.

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OK, what if you were a friend like Luke? What if he was like, hey, one or two other candles in the area, you begin to light a fire and instead of doing dumb things together, you're bold for the

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Lord together. Think about that. But we can't give to the young people such a hard time, right?

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Because you say, well, peer pressure, it's real hard in high school. Baloney, it's hard your whole life. Peer pressure is hard your whole life.

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Now, some of you, you're older, you're not a teenager, you're like me, you haven't been a teenager for a couple of decades now, and now you look back and you're like, but you're still being controlled by peer pressure.

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But why don't you be a friend like Luke and encourage one another to godly boldness, so much so that your buddy will give his head for Christ if necessary?

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That's what Paul did. Loyalty. Loyalty to Christ, loyalty to your church, loyalty to your friends.

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It may require hardship, it may require persecution. You may get labeled negatively just by association with your friend.

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But guess what? Luke did it and his life, I'm arguing, is worthy of imitation. OK, this is a man who wrote

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Acts. This is a man who wrote Luke. Concluding application and we will land the plane.

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Sometimes I've been told that they don't think the landing gear on the plane works very well.

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But that's what we're doing. The first response that you should have to Luke's life is that you, too, should be a repenter.

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I don't know much about Luke's background, but I know he was a sinner in need of mercy and he found it in Christ. And I can tell you this, if you will go to Christ, you'll find mercy.

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Luke says this in Luke 5, 31 and 32. Those who are well have no need of a physician, these are the words of Jesus, but those who are sick have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

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So here, let's put it this way, are you righteous, you're righteous, go to sleep, tune me out.

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You don't got to hear this if you're righteous. But if you are a sinner, then hear me out.

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Jesus calls you to repentance. Luke was a physician. Jesus is a better physician.

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Luke could have helped you with your bodily ailments, but Jesus alone can heal your soul.

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He came from heaven to seek and save the lost. Are you lost? Do you see your lostness this morning?

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Do you see your need for Christ? What must I do? Go to him. He lived righteously for sinners like you.

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He died under God's judgment for sinners like you. He rose again in victory for sinners like you to gather his church unto himself.

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Trust him, go to him in faith, receive his righteousness by faith alone, receive today pardon and forgiveness and reconciliation, repent and believe the gospel.

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Nothing else I say matters unless that is the beginning. Now, if you're a

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Christian. Be reminded of this, Luke is not a superhero.

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I would even argue that Luke is not radical, right? We don't need a radical

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Christian so much as we just need Christians, just ordinary faithful Christians.

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God used this ordinary man in specific ways. Yes, but I'm saying to you, ordinary man, ordinary woman, he can use you in specific ways, too.

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But you get you got to trust him in these things and believe what Luke wrote in Luke 12, 31 and 32.

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Seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

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What a glory. Hey, church, would you just listen? What in the world? God is pleased to give us a kingdom.

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What if we live that way? Will you leverage your life and your gifts and your time for the kingdom of Christ?

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It is the father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. He has given it to you already in part now.

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But what glory awaits when Jesus returns. You're not going to wish you had more plastic

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Tonka trucks when Jesus returns. You'll have wished that you gave more to the kingdom.

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And this should affect your time and your goals and your priorities. And yes, even even giving.

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Stop waiting on others. You know what? I'll just mess with Steve. It's what happens when you sit on the front row.

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When Steve Turnage starts getting more serious, then I'll start getting more serious.

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Let Steve be responsible before the Lord for Steve. But you go, you go and you do what you're supposed to do.

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In fact, Luke starts out his gospel. I'm going to kind of put it in my words, essentially saying this. Many have written about this already, but I'm going to write about it, too.

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So can you take that mentality with you when you go to the gas station, when you go to the restaurant, when you gather with your family, when you go to work?

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Can you have that mentality, too? Hey, many people have already shared Jesus. I know it, but I want to share him, too.

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Many people have already talked about the Christ with you and the Lord, but I'm going to do it, too. Stop waiting on others to steward the gospel and you take it up and you give it to those that God has placed in your life.

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And consider the type of people that Luke references. We got rich people like Lydia and we got scum like Zacchaeus.

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That punk taking money from his own people, that's not the kind of person

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I want to be around. Democrats, right? Whatever. They need the gospel.

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Take the gospel to the outcast. Take the gospel to the man who has more money than you.

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Take the gospel to the man who has less money than you, than you. Take the gospel across the political aisle.

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Take the gospel to those that no one else wants to touch. The person messed up on drugs and drunkenness and lying in a ditch or in the homeless shelter or whatever the case may be.

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Here, you know what? Liberal mainline denominations are anathema.

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They've lost the gospel. But you know where they put us to shame? Where they put us to shame is at times when they'll go to places that we won't.

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But they ain't taking the gospel there. They're taking a cup of hot soup and essentially saying, be warm as you go to hell.

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Well, we should not let them outdo us in going to places that need the gospel. Love the outcast.

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And finally, I'll say this. It's OK for people not to know who you are.

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You barely knew who Luke was before he came in today. He's an underrated brother.

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And he's OK with that. If before this sermon I said, give me your five top people in the

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New Testament, you might have forgotten that Luke existed. Well, there's

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Peter, there's Paul, there's John. I mean, obviously, my number one is Jesus. And then maybe I'll go

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James or something. Right? You forgot that Luke even existed. He wasn't an apostle.

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We don't know for sure. I'm saying he's a pastor, but maybe we don't know that for sure. But I'll tell you this. Never in the

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Bible is he ever saying, hey, look at me, look at me, look at me. I'm Luke. He's never saying that.

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He doesn't even use his own name in his writings. He's just writing to have a life that are just writing to show us

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Christ and living his life as a faithful brother unknown. Certainly, I would say undervalued, but that's

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OK with him because Christ is his treasure. He would gladly spend and be spent for the cause of Christ, for the church, for the mission, until the day he breathed his last, which tradition tells us he was 84.

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That would put it pretty close to the end of the first century, if maybe not, I mean, if he was born, let's say, in 18,

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I would put it past the first century. We don't know the date. Here's what we do know.

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When he died, he left a life well spent for our king and he never saw

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Jesus in this life. OK, he tells us that. At the beginning, he didn't see these things firsthand.

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He never got to see Jesus in this life. But when he closed his eyes in death, he beheld

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Christ's glory. I can't even give you words that would justify he beheld

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Christ's glory in an unimaginable way, like never before, like nothing we could describe, never regretting a single moment that he invested in the kingdom.

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I don't know what you're going to do with that sermon, I can tell you for me,

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I can tell you what the sermon does for me. First of all, it humbles me.

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It reminds me that there's too much of my life at times that are distracted or misprioritized.

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It causes me again to get a joy and a zeal and a boldness and a hunger for Christ and his kingdom.

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And it makes me want to be a better man for the Lord. If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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God's doing. This is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemos, the masterpiece of God.