That You Might Have Certainty
Luke 1:1-4
Luke chapter one, verse one, and I’m going to start things off this way…So one morning last week, my wife comes to me with, “Hey, I have an idea.” I was like, “What’s that?” She goes, “Let’s go for a trail run.” I said, “What’s a trail run?” She said, “Well, you find a trail in the woods, and you run it.” I said, “Why would we do that?” And she’s like, “Well, it’s exercise, it’s good exercise. I’m like, “Well, can’t we go to the gym? Or can’t we, in the comfort of our own living room, watch some yoga video or something like that? What are we talking about, like a type of exercise?” She goes, “No, it’s a trail run. It would be fun to trail run.” This was news to me, because I thought trail runs ended with the invention of the car, personally. But apparently this is a thing where people find trails and they run down them. So we drive to this trail. Now, I don’t know how you operate, but here’s how I operate. Whenever I’m doing any physical activity at all, I mean like mowing the grass or anything at all, running, a trail, I have to wear headphones. Anybody else like this? I have to wear headphones in order to distract me from this horrible thing that I’m doing. I have to extract my mind and my senses from all this stuff. So I have to have something, and I’ll listen to some kind of podcast or music sometimes. And so we get to this trail. I put in the little AirPods, and my wife’s got hers in. And she turns it, like she’s listening to worship music, something real godly. She got her worship music in,and she’s turning that thing up, and she’s just running. And it’s crazy, too, because my wife, she worships as she runs, man. She multitasks. She exercises and glorifies Jesus. Amazing. She’s listening to worship music. I, on the other hand, am listening to a podcast about Sasquatch because I have issues, and this is what I do. I’m a weirdo, okay? Seriously, I’m listening to my podcast about Sasquatch. She’s listening to worship music. She’s like five yards ahead of me because she’s faster than I am and cares more. So we’re running down this trail, and at some point, we come around the bend. And I noticed that the bend, the dirt path, becomes pavement at some point. And I’m looking around, and my wife is worshiping. I can tell she’s caught up in this beautiful moment with the Lord because she’s singing. She’s got a hand raised and she’s looking adoringly into heaven. I mean, she’s not really paying attention at all to our surroundings. I, on the other hand, am paying very close attention to our surroundings because I’m listening to a podcast about Sasquatch in the woods. So true. I’m scaling the woods and looking at the trail. I’m making sure there’s no 11-foot tall, hairy, bipedal, conical head-shaped thing stalking us. And I’m making sure we’re good.
So I’m paying attention. She’s not paying attention. As I’m scanning around, looking at our surroundings, I spot something in the middle of the trail about 15 feet ahead of where we are. And here’s what I saw right there on the trail. A snake. We’re running towards it, and the problem is my wife’s just like, “I love you, Jesus.” And I’m terrified because I see this thing. And so here’s the thing, by the way.I know what some of y’all are thinking, because I can see it in your eyes, and I don’t like it. You’re like, “Anson, don’t you know that’s a king snake? How dumb can you be, man? That’s a king snake. That’s one of the good snakes. And people like that make you angry.That’s one of the good snakes. Let me tell you something, If that’s what you’re thinking right now, you need to repent. Okay? Like right now. Repent.
Listen, there ain’t no such thing as a good snake. There ain’t. Just like there’s no such thing as a good car crash, or a good nuclear war. Or a good Twilight movie. Or a good Harry Styles song. There’s no good snake stuff. There’s no good snake. All snakes are demonic and terrible, which is why Satan is referred to as a snake in the Bible. You have to read the text. So there’s no such thing as a good snake.
So I see this thing, and again, the problem is my wife doesn’t see it. I see it. And so here’s the thing. In an effort to protect my wife from this harmless snake, I yell at her. She’s like five yards ahead of me, so she can’t see me. I can’t just make a motion. So I yelled her name. “Heather!” She’s still running. She doesn’t hear me. She’s still running, singing. She can’t hear through the AirPods. And so I decided to scream her name again louder. “Heather!” She still doesn’t hear me because apparently she has the only pair of noise-canceling headphones that actually work. So I’m yelling her name but she cannot hear what I’m saying.She’s getting closer to the snake that she doesn’t see. So now I turn on the jets, man and I just run as fast as I can. I get up to her. I grab her by the shoulder and turn her around. At this point, she screams louder than I’ve ever heard in my life. I totally scared her to death. She screams, and then she goes into self-defense mode, too. She’s like, “Mm.” She’s doing that thing and all that stuff. And I’m, “What?” And she turns around and sees that it’s just me. It’s just me. She goes, “What is, why did you do that? Why did you grab me like that? You scared me to death. What are you doing?” I said, “Babe, I need to tell you something.” She said, “What? What is it?” And I just pointed down at the ground and she looked at the snake. And that’s when she screamed even louder than the first time.
Now, here’s the deal, family. Here’s why I tell you that story. So at that moment in that park, there was a specific message I needed to get across to my wife. And it was very important that she hear this message. It was very important that she be aware of this particular thing.
And if I did not get that particular message to her, it was going to go very badly for her. So it was very important for me to relay the message to her because I care about her and I don’t want things to go badly for her.
Now, just so you know, this is exactly what brings us to our journey in the gospel of Luke. Because here’s what we’re going to find out. And today we’re kicking this thing off and we’re only starting with the prologue, which is the first four verses of the gospel of Luke. What we’re going to find out, beloved, is this: There is a very specific reason that this brother Luke is writing this book of the Bible and the reason is this, family: There’s a really important message that Luke needs to share with a very specific person, and Luke is absolutely convinced that this is the most important message in the history of the world. And so he has to share this message,which is the entire reason the gospel of Luke is written.
So let me show you what I’m talking about, family. We’re just going to dive in. Again, we’re handling the first four verses today. So Luke 1, starting at verse one, says this, family, “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 Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.”
So here’s the thing. It’s extremely important that we all understand what makes this particular book of the Bible unique. I love every book of the Bible that we walk through together as a church family. But you need to understand, beloved, that these next few months are going to be pretty unique because this is a very unique book of the Bible. And we need to understand, before we walk through it, what makes the gospel of Luke unique and what makes Luke, this brother who wrote this, so unique in particular. So that being said, here are a few things you need to know about the gospel of Luke and about Luke, the man, in order to sort of have a deeper appreciation for this journey we’re about to go on.
Luke Was Long-Winded
First of all, and a lot of us here know this, even a lot of unchurched people, non-Christian folks in here would know this. There are actually four books of the Bible that deal with the life and the ministry of Jesus Christ. And we call these gospels. It’s Matthew and Mark and Luke and John. There are four gospels in the New Testament, but Luke’s gospel is actually the longest one. Luke’s gospel, if you were to count up every single one of the verses has 1,151 verses. And amazingly 568 of those verses are just the words of Jesus.
Think about that. There are 1,151 verses in Luke and just under half of those are the words of Jesus. Just the red letter words of Jesus, which means if you want to know what Jesus said, read Luke. If you want to know what Jesus taught, if you want to know what Jesus said, if you want to know the conversations that Jesus had. You need to read the gospel of Luke because this is the longest of the gospels, and half of it is simply the red letters, as we call them, words of Jesus.
Additionally, family, the gospel of Luke is actually part one of a two-part series that was written by our guy, Luke. The book of Acts is part two of the two-part series. Both Luke and Acts were written by Luke. Luke is part one. Acts, which our women’s Bible study and our men’s Bible study this year is walking through and studying through in their Bible study times, was the second part of this two-part series. Which means, if you totaled up all the words that Luke wrote in the New Testament, Luke wrote 49,869 words. This means Luke wrote more words of your New Testament than any other New Testament author, including Paul. Paul wrote more books, letters, but Luke wrote more words. And quite frankly, family, this is one of the reasons I love Luke so much, because he’s long-winded. I love that Luke just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Long-winded preachers tend to like long-winded preachers, and I love him.
Luke Was a Gentile
Furthermore, do you know this? Luke was a Gentile. Luke was not a Jew and this is really important to understand as we walk through Luke together, because what this means is that just like a lot of us sitting in this room, Luke didn’t grow up in church. Or we can say it this way: he didn’t grow up going to the synagogue. He didn’t grow up going to Temple. Luke grew up in a pagan home and some of us know what this is like. Luke grew up in a pagan family where they didn’t worship God and they didn’t go to church and they didn’t read the Bible ever and they didn’t do the whole God thing. But the crazy, amazing thing is, in spite of what his childhood was like, there was some point in his life when someone told him the gospel and his life was changed forever. He trusted in Jesus. It didn’t matter what his childhood was like. It didn’t matter if they didn’t read the Bible or he never went to church. There was some point where he heard the gospel and like Paul says, it was the power of God unto salvation. It changed his life and we’re benefiting from that today.
Luke is Writing This Gospel to a Very Specific Person
We also know that Luke is writing this gospel to a very specific person. Don’t miss that detail. He’s writing this to someone in particular, and we read it in verse three. Look at verse three again, family.
It says this, “It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus.
Luke is writing this letter to someone he refers to as most excellent, Theophilus. To be sure, we don’t know who Theophilus was. We don’t know what this man did. We don’t know his identity. Here’s what we do know. We do know that that name Theophilus actually is formed out of two Greek words. First of all, the Greek word theos, which means God, and second of all, the Greek word philos, which means friend, so his name actually means friend of God. There are some Bible scholars who have posited in the past that maybe this was just symbolic and this wasn’t really a person. It was supposed to symbolize all of the people who were receiving this letter, which is why the name is friend of God. I don’t believe that. I think Theophilus was a real person and the reason I believe that is because I notice how Luke refers to him as “most excellent Theophilus”. And when you pay close attention to Luke’s writing, there are only two other places in Luke’s writing where he refers to someone as most excellent. They each happen at the end of the book of Acts where the apostle Paul refers to most excellent King Agrippa and refers to a Roman official by the name of Festus as “most excellent Festus”, which means a lot of people believe that Theophilus was a very important man, maybe even a Roman official. Maybe the name Theophilus itself was a code name for the real man because Luke knew by writing him directly, he would get in trouble. He would be persecuted. Something bad would happen. But I believe that this is a real guy that Luke is writing to, someone named Theophilus, and it’s for a very specific reason.
There are 41 Different Parts of the Book of Luke Completely Unique to the Gospel of Luke
Furthermore, one of the things that makes the Gospel of Luke such an important book of the Bible is that there are 41 different parts of the book of Luke that are completely unique to the Gospel of Luke. This means 41 different things we’ll read in Luke you won’t read in any other Gospel because of the interviews that Luke conducted with the eyewitnesses. So, think about that. There are 41 things we wouldn’t know about Jesus at all had Luke not done his research. 41. It’s a very unique book.
In addition to all that, the Gospel of Luke has often been called by Bible scholars as the Gospel of prayer. A lot of Bible scholars say the Gospel of Luke is like the Gospel of prayer. The reason they say that is because of how much of an emphasis is put on prayer in the Gospel of Luke. For example, there are nine different prayers that Luke tells us Jesus offered up, and seven of those prayers are completely unique to the Gospel of Luke. We don’t read them anywhere else.
Luke Was Not an Apostle, But Was a Close Friend of Paul
And finally, contrary to what some people think, Luke was not one of the 12 disciples. Luke was not one of the apostles. In fact, for all we know, Luke never saw Jesus face to face. But here’s the thing that is true about Luke. Luke was a very close friend and a strong supporter and a ministry partner and a traveling companion of the apostle Paul. As a matter of fact, he was sort of thick as thieves with this guy, Paul. So, here’s what we read, particularly in the book of Acts over and over again. Paul was an enemy to Christians. He hated churches. He hated Jesus. His story is a lot like some of our stories. He couldn’t stand Jesus, completely anti-all things Jesus, was doing everything he could to wreck the church, criticize the church, blast the church, tweet about the church, all that crazy nonsense. He just wanted the church to die; literally wanted the church to end and for the message of Jesus to die out. Well, Jesus shows up, and radically saves this guy. His life’s transformed. And then he goes out and he’s filled with the Holy Spirit.
In Paul’s story, in the book of Acts, he becomes this incredible missionary where he’s going from town to village to township to city, and he’s preaching the good news about Jesus. He’s preaching the gospel message, which means Paul would go into a city and he would preach a message that sounded a lot like this:
“Hey, listen everybody. There is a God and that God created you and that God loves you. But, here’s the bad news. You’ve sinned against God. You’ve chosen your way over God’s. You’ve gone your own way and so because of your sin and rebellion against the Holy God, you deserve hell forever. And that’s really bad news. But here’s the good news. God, who is rich in mercy and abounding in steadfast love, sent his only son, Jesus, to this world to seek and to save the lost. And Jesus lived the perfect life that you could never live, and Jesus died on the cross that you, frankly, deserve to die on for your sin, and Jesus rose from the grave, defeating death, hell, and the devil, victorious forever, so that you could be saved, forgiven of your sins, and have a right relationship with God, and be filled with God’s Holy Spirit, and live with him forever in eternity. And if you will repent of your sin and trust in Jesus, you will be saved.”
Now the problem is, everywhere Paul preached that message, much like today, people got mad. People got uptight. Stop talking about that, Paul. Don’t say Jesus is the only way. Don’t you know you can’t say stuff like that? And so they would throw rocks at him until they thought he was dead. They would throw him in prison. Riots would start. How would you like that to be your reputation? Riots start wherever you go. Chaos is happening. Paul’s constantly thrown in jail, but here’s the amazing thing. You know who was with him through it all? Luke. In spite of all the chaos, in spite of all the insanity that would happen around Paul and around his ministry, Luke stayed with Paul, no matter what. In fact, the very last letter that the apostle Paul ever wrote is called 2 Timothy. Now the significance of this letter is that Paul, when he’s writing it, is in prison waiting to die. It’s his last letter. In just a matter of weeks or months, he’s going to be executed by Rome. Paul is in this prison, and it’s not like our prisons today where you get to go to the weight room and watch ESPN. It’s cold, it’s dark and he’s hungry. He’s being mistreated horribly. And yet, in this prison, he writes this letter to his young intern, Timothy. It’s the last letter Paul will ever write, the last correspondence he’ll ever give. And in the final days of his life, when a lot of his friends have already abandoned him and walked away and people have just sort of forgotten about Paul outside of prison, listen to what Paul writes. We learn a lot about Luke from this. Paul writes in 2 Timothy, chapter four, some of his last words and he is killed right after this. Paul says this in 2 Timothy four: “Do your best,” he says to Timothy, “Do your best to come to me soon. For Demus, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia. Titus to Dalmatia. Now watch this: “Luke alone is with me.”
Paul’s like, I got nobody else. I’m in jail. I’m in prison here in Rome. Things are bad. And Luke alone is with him. When nobody else was there, Luke was there. Paul had a ride or die and it was Luke. I ain’t going anywhere. I’m not leaving. Not getting rid of me. And this tells us something about the character of this guy Luke who actually writes this letter.
Luke Was Loyal to His Friends
This brings us to the very first thing we know about Luke and his character is this: Luke was loyal to his friends. I don’t want you to miss this because it tells us something about Luke following Jesus and his faith. Luke is a man who’s loyal to his friends. Think about it this way. Luke was literally the kind of person who was a friend until the end. When everybody else was walking out of Paul’s life, when everybody else was ditching Paul, Luke was walking into his life. When everybody else was leaving, Luke was staying. In other words, Luke was a follower of Jesus and one of the things that meant to Luke was this. Jesus has saved me, Jesus has transformed me, Jesus has arrived to my world and changed my life. My faith is in Jesus. So, much like Jesus, I want to be a true friend to my friends and much like it says in Proverbs 18, verse 24, I want to be the kind of friend who sticks closer than a brother. That’s the kind of friend I’m going to be. When things get hard, when things get awkward, when things get dark, as they often do in friendships, and when things get weird, I’m not going to ditch. I’m not going to bail. I’m going to be the kind of friend that sticks closer to a brother.
Let me ask you a question. How many of you had a friend and you were convinced this was your forever friend? You know what I mean? You were convinced that if anybody’s a forever friend, this is a forever friend. This is a ride or die friend and will be ’til the end. We’re going to grow up and be angry old men yelling at kids in the yard. And you were convinced this is going to be a friend to the end and you were going to get to be real old and that inevitably one of you was going to die first and they were going to put that person in the hole and you’d be like, forget it, I’m jumping in. And you’d just be there and you’d just bury me with them because you were so close and you’re convinced, totally convinced, this is my friend until the end. I know it. There’s no way this friendship will ever end. And then something happened and something went sideways and it turned out they weren’t a friend until the end. They were a friend until Tuesday. So it went sideways, things got awkward, things got weird, things got hard as they do in a fallen world and that person walked away and then it turned out they were just a companion for a season. They were not a true friend and not a friend that sticks closer to a brother. They were a companion and so consequently when this happens over and over again, when you get hurt or burned or betrayed or ditched or ghosted or whatever by a friend, how do we tend to respond? And frankly, if we’re honest, a lot of us have been that friend that walked away. Well, I know how I tend to respond when I feel like I’m sort of burned time after time again in friendships and people I’ve opened my heart to and people I’ve become vulnerable with. I’m tempted to get really callous and I think it’s probably common human behavior. I’m tempted to kind of develop, when my heart gets ripped apart, scar tissue and instead of my heart getting softer, my heart kind of gets harder. And I get real cynical about letting anybody else into here because I feel like I know what’s going to happen because I feel like it’s happened a thousand times before. As soon as I let somebody in, they just rip the thing out like the Georgia Bulldogs used to do before they won the national championship. I don’t want to deal with that and so instead, I won’t let you in and I become real cynical towards relationships.
There’s a problem with getting callous when I get hurt by friendships. The problem is that a lack of true friendship never actually leads to a place of peace. Instead, a lack of true friendship always just leads to loneliness. It never leads to a better place. It’s a one-way street and you’re in the cul-de-sac forever of loneliness and that’s just kinda how the deal works.
My wife was preparing to teach the Acts study for the women that started this past Wednesday and I was looking at her notes, geeking out and I stole a quote from her. She had found this quote and I was like, that quote is money and I want to use that quote. It’s a quote about loneliness and it’s from the American Psychological Association. The American Psychological Association did a study and here’s what they found:
According to a 2018 national survey by Cigna, loneliness levels have reached an all-time high with nearly half of 20,000 US adults reporting they sometimes or always feel alone. 40% of survey participants also reported they sometimes or always feel alone. They sometimes or always feel that their relationships are not meaningful and that they feel isolated.
In other words, we live in a world where true friendship, real biblical friendship is kind of a very rare commodity. There’s this book I read back some years ago called True Friendship by a guy named Vaughn Robertson, which I highly recommend. It’s a Christian book; it’s from a biblical perspective.
Vaughn Roberts writes this, “We live in interwoven networks of terminally casual relationships. Terminally casual relationships. We live with the delusion that we know one another, but we really don’t. We call our easygoing, self-protective, and often theologically platitudinous conversations ‘fellowship’, but they seldom ever reach the threshold of true fellowship. We know cold demographic details about one another, married or single, type of job, number of kids, general location of housing, et cetera. But we know little about the struggle of faith that is waged every day behind well-maintained personal boundaries. Our Facebook profile might tell us that we have 464 friends, but how many really know us? How many would we be willing to make real sacrifices for? How many are there on whom we can rely in times of need?
You see it? So here’s the issue. The problem is a lot of us who have been hurt by friends in the past, we’re thinking to ourselves, “You know what, man? Bump this. Why should I be a good friend to anybody? Nobody’s been a good friend to me. Why should I take the time to invest when nobody’s invested in me? Why should I be a good friend to anybody? All people do is let you down. Quite frankly, I’d rather be friends with an inanimate object than a human, ’cause at least they won’t let you down. All humans ever do is let you down. I’d rather be friends with this stand. You want to be friends? Cool, let’s go to Disney. Let’s go. Let’s do this. We’ll be friends because humans just let you down all the time.
Who likes movies? I like movies. Do you cry at movies? So, I’ve cried at two movies. One, I will never tell you. I will take it to my grave because it’s humiliating. But the second one is the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks because here’s the story. So I cried. So Tom Hanks plays this guy, Chuck, who works for FedEx. He’s an executive for FedEx and he has to take a trip overseas for FedEx. So he gets on a FedEx plane that he charges out of Memphis. He gets on, and it’s got FedEx packages on it like FedEx planes typically do. And what do you know, the plane goes down in the South Pacific. Somehow he miraculously survives, but he ends up on a desert island by himself, the only survivor. Now, a few days later, FedEx packages start washing up on shore. Whoa, right? So Chuck runs down, and he starts opening them up, and lo and behold, he opens one up and it’s a Wilson brand volleyball. And so he paints a little face on it, and it’s his friend. Do you know what he names it? Wilson. It’s brilliant. It’s a brilliant movie. And he talks with Wilson and the longer he’s there and he’s with Wilson, he and Wilson are having conversations. And here’s the thing, there comes a point in the movie where he builds a raft. Remember this, if you’ve seen it? He builds that raft to get off of the island, and he takes Wilson, his only friend, with him, and then one morning, he wakes up, and lo and behold, what’s he see? Wilson is some yards away, floating in the ocean, and he’s floating away, and he knows he can’t swim in after him because there’s sharks, and he’s weak, and he’ll never reach him, and he’ll never survive. So he’s just got that moment where he’s got his hand out, and he’s screaming at his friend, “Wilson, Wilson!” And I’m in the theater weeping, weeping, and my wife’s next to me going, “Why are you crying?” And I’m like, “It’s sad.” She’s like, “You won’t cry at The Notebook, but you’ll cry at this?” I’m like, “Yes, because I’m a Christian.” And I just weep. And I think the reason I cried so much is in a lot of ways, to me, Wilson was the perfect friend. For real. That’s why I cry. Why’d the perfect friend have to die? He’s the perfect friend; think about it. That volleyball, in a whole lot of ways, was a better friend than a lot of humans. There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, Wilson was there when Chuck needed him most. He’s stranded on an island. Who’s with him the whole time? Wilson. The other thing is, when you watch the movie, here’s what’s fascinating. Wilson was actually supportive, and he helped Chuck to reach his full potential. Don’t believe me? Go back and watch the flick. You know what happens? Chuck is not able to make fire; he can’t do it. He’s like me, lost in the woods. He’s just like, “There’s no way. Even with a lighter, I can’t make fire”. He can’t make fire, but then as soon as Wilson shows up, guess what he’s able to do? Make fire. Why? ‘Cause Wilson supported him. That’s what I think. And the other thing I love about Wilson, he never holds a grudge. Seriously, he doesn’t hold a grudge. There’s a scene in the movie where Tom Hanks is screaming at his volleyball friend, because he’s slowly losing his mind. So he’s screaming at his volleyball friend about something he wants to do, and then he gets mad at something that Wilson said, and he takes him and boom, punches him out of the cave. Kicks him in the face, 50 yards. And then all of a sudden he goes, “Oh no!,” realizes he just kicked his only friend into the ocean. And then he runs out, “Wilson! Wilson! Wilson!,” picks him up, and says, “I’m sorry, Wilson. “I’m sorry, Wilson. I’m sorry, Wilson.” You know what Wilson says? Nothing, because he’s a friend. Just forgave him. Just totally forgave him.
See, this is exactly what true friends are supposed to be like. They’re there when you need them most. They’re supportive and they don’t hold a grudge. They forgive you when you mess up. What’s so hard about that? And yet many of us, feel like we’ve never ever had a true friend. Like that ride or die friend, that friend that’s just there constantly. So consequently what happens is when we feel like we haven’t had a friend like that, we stop trying to be a friend like that. Now the problem with that way of thinking is that Jesus Christ, our great God and Savior sets a completely and totally different example for us. And we read about it later on in Luke. You know what Luke is going to tell us about Jesus later in chapter seven? He’s going to refer to Jesus as a friend of sinners. He’s a friend of sinners. And over and over and over again throughout the Gospel of Luke, this is what we see.
Later on in the Gospel of Luke, when nobody wants to spend time or give the time of day to this dude Zacchaeus, who’s just cheating people right and left, who goes to stay at his house? Jesus. When Mary and Martha have lost their brother Lazarus and later on they need somebody, who stays with them and hears them out? Jesus. Jesus is constantly a friend of sinners. He’s spending time with sinners. And one of the things that we know to be true about this brother Luke is that he followed the example of Jesus by being a very loyal friend. And I don’t want to pass by this. Do you have a friend like Luke in your life? Think about it. Do you have a friend like Luke in your life? A “I’m just going to be here” friend that sits closer than your brother. You ain’t getting rid of me, I’m with you, I’m in this, friend. Do you have a friend like Luke in your life? Now some of us would say, “I don’t think so”. Well, let me ask you this. Are you being a friend like Luke? To somebody else?
Luke Was Humble Before His God
So we see something about how the gospels transformed this brother Luke, and then we begin to see it over and over again in this text too. Because another thing we know to be true about our boy Luke, number two, is that Luke was humble before his God. Luke is a man who’s humble before his God. So here’s the deal, we read it a while ago. I don’t know if you noticed this or not, when we read the first four verses of the gospel of Luke. Did you happen to notice? Did it stick out to you that not one single time in those four verses does Luke mention his own name? In fact, read the entire book of Luke. You know what you’re never going to find in the entire book of Luke? You are never going to find a mention of his own name.
Now I’m just shooting straight with you. I’d have been tempted to do something else there. Hey, guess what? There are 41 other things you’re going to find in this book that you won’t read in John or Mark or Matthew. You’re welcome. Love, Anson. Lots of work went into this. Not once does this brother in the entire gospel of Luke mention his own name. He’s not trying to get the spotlight. He’s not trying to get an “atta boy”. He’s not trying to be famous. He’s not trying to get 50,000 retweets over here. He just wants people to know about Jesus. Luke’s like, listen, you don’t need to know my name. You need to know the name of Jesus. You don’t need to know my brand. You don’t need to know what I’m about. You need to know Jesus. You don’t need to know my message. You need to know the message of Jesus. You don’t need to know my words. You need to know the words of Jesus. You don’t need to know more about me. You need to know more about Jesus. And so there’s this shroud of humility we see in the gospel of Luke and in the book of Acts. See, beloved, apparently Luke took it very seriously when Jesus later on in the book of Luke will say this in chapter 14. Jesus says, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” And that was Luke. He just followed Jesus by being a humble man who trusted God. You don’t need to know more, but it’s not about me. It’s not about me trying to get what should only belong to God, namely the spotlight. It’s about Him.
Luke Was Generous to Other People
Additionally, a third thing we know to be true about this guy Luke is that Luke was generous to other people. This is a significant character trait in this sketch of this brother Luke. Now, the basic question is, how do we know that? How do we know that Luke was a generous person towards other people? Well, it’s because of what we know about the life of this brother.
For instance, first of all, I don’t know if you know this or not, but we know with certainty that Luke was brilliant. Don’t miss this. The brother was brilliant. We’re talking like one percentile brilliant. We’re talking Rhodes Scholar brilliant. We’re talking five-time Jeopardy champion brilliant. We’re talking consolidated Rubik’s Cube faster than you brilliant. Just a smart dude. 1550 on SAT, brilliant. How do we know that? Well, it’s interesting, family. Historians tell us that this guy Luke’s usage of the Greek language is off the charts. In fact, it’s some of the most brilliant Greek writing. When you read Luke and Acts written in the Greek, historians tell us, not just Christian historians, historians across the board tell us it’s some of the most brilliant Greek writing in all of antiquity. In fact, the passage that they typically point to first is the prologue right here. I don’t know if this stood out to you or not. Do you notice the first four verses right here? It’s one sentence. And historians point to this and agree that this is one of the most beautiful, brilliant Greek sentences ever written in the history of history. And they point to the fact that his use of Greek is so different from the other gospel writers. The guy was brilliant.
Additionally, family, do you know that some of the greatest historians who’ve ever lived have gone on record declaring that Luke’s history is some of the most precise and reliable history ever written? In all the world, it’s some of the most reliable history ever written. For example, there’s this one famous historian named Otto Piper, and Otto Piper says, “Wherever modern scholarship has been able to check up on the accuracy of Luke’s work, the judgment has been unanimous. He is one of the finest and ablest historians in the ancient world.”
Additionally, there’s a famous archeologist named William Ramsey, and William Ramsey said this about Luke, “Luke is a historian of the first rank. Not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense. He sees the important and critical events and shows their true nature at greater length while he touches lightly or omits entirely much that was valueless for his purpose. In short, this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.”
So follow this, family. He’s absolutely, totally brilliant. I mean, the kid in class is scoring hundreds on everything. Always crossing the stage at the end of the year, and he’s an impeccable historian. But follow this. Not only is he a master historian, and not only is he a whiz kid and just a genius, but on top of all that, do you happen to know what this dude’s day job was? He’s a doctor. He’s a medical doctor. What I’m saying to you is he’s literally the kind of guy that every parent wants their daughter to marry. He’s smart, he’s well-read, he’s a medical doctor, and he loves God. Ching! Here’s how we know he’s a doctor. Colossians chapter four says this. Paul says, “Luke, the beloved physician, greets you.” Dear Church of Colossae, Dr. Luke says, “Hey, Luke, the beloved physician greets you.”
So Luke was a doctor. He was schooled in medical science, and in the first century, that was a really, really big deal. This brother knew medicine, and he had a deep appreciation for those who practiced it. Some of y’all in this church are covenant members of this church, and you practice medicine. You’re in the medical field. This is your world, and I’m just telling you, if you were to be a contemporary to Luke, you’d have hung out with the guy. This is your tribe, this is your ilk. This guy was not only a medical doctor, he appreciated medicine. One of the ways we know this, is in verse one or two here in this passage, you’ll see the word eyewitnesses. Luke says in verse two, “just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us”. What’s fascinating is that word “eyewitnesses” in the Greek is the word “autopty”. It’s a medical term that we get the word autopsy from. Throughout the book, Luke is using medical language, Greek words that have to do with medicine. He has a deep appreciation for those who practice medicine, and you see this when you compare it with other gospel writers.
One of the funnier examples to me of this is. How many of you remember this moment in the gospels where there’s this woman who’s been struggling for 12 years with an issue where she’s bleeding. Anybody remember that story? And she’s going to experience a miracle from Jesus. It’s one of the incredible miracles that Jesus does. What’s funny though is when you compare how Mark tells the story versus how Luke tells the story. Let me show you what I mean. So, Mark says in Mark 5, verse 25, “And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse.” Mark’s going to those stinking doctors. Give me your money, now get sick. It’s like, what’s his beef against doctors?
Now what’s fascinating is you compare how he tells the story with Dr. Luke’s much lighter approach. Luke chapter eight, verse 43, says this, “And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.” Mark, take it easy, bro. We’re all trying over here. Like, I ain’t Jesus, man, that’s why she needs Jesus. Have you ever heard of the Hippocratic Oath? Hello? I’m a doctor. I prescribe you one chill pill. Take it and call me later. I mean, what’s your deal, man? Come on. You see the lighter approach? Why, because he’s a doctor.
As a matter of fact, what’s interesting about Luke as we read this gospel is that Luke kind of geeks out on the healing miracles of Jesus, which makes sense, because that was his world. Oh, tell me, how’d he heal that? What? Seriously? He’s almost obsessed with the healing miracles in the gospel of Luke. So here’s the question. What in the world does all this have to do with him being generous? I mean, pray tell, preacher, what’s that mean? What’s the point? I mean, so he’s brilliant, and he’s good at history, and he’s a doctor. What’s that have to do with him being generous? Well, here’s what you have to think about. Beloved, this guy had a brain. This guy had intelligence. This guy had skills and talents and a resume and degrees. And all this stuff would have allowed this brother to do anything in this world he ever wanted to do, and make a ton of money while he did it. And yet, how does this guy live his life serving Christ? My time, my talent, my treasure, my resources, my brain, my skills, my schooling, I’m going to use these to serve Jesus. Luke uses his time and talents and treasure to invest in the eternal kingdom of God, and 2,000 years later, we’re all still benefiting from it. So, I think maybe he made the right choice. Amen? The generosity of this guy is amazing.
I was thinking about how some of you have been unbelievably blessed by the Lord, you are unbelievably richly blessed by God financially, and at the same time, you are incredibly generous toward the forward advance of the gospel. Just like Luke. It’s amazing. It’s almost as if Luke had actually obeyed Jesus when later on in the gospel of Luke, Jesus says this in Luke chapter six, “Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” He’s generous.
Luke Had a Burden For Those Who Doubt
There’s a final thing we know to be true about Luke before we enter this journey on the study of the Gospel of Luke. And this is incredible. The final thing we know about Luke is that Luke had a burden for those who doubt. Don’t miss this. Oh boy, Luke had a burden for those who doubt. See, I don’t know if you caught it the first time we read through these four verses, but there’s a very specific reason that we said this brother Luke is writing this gospel to the international man of mystery, Theophilus. This mystery man we don’t know much about, and yet he’s writing this letter for a reason. So what’s the reason? Well, look at it again. Let me read beginning in verse one again so you catch this the reason for the entire gospel of Luke.
He says, “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.”
Translation, I’ve been studying this stuff forever, talking to people forever, “in order to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,” Now verse four says, “that you may have certainty.” This is such a big deal. “That you, Theophilus, may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” Did you catch that? The entire reason that Dr. Luke is writing this account of the life and ministry and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for his boy, Theophilus, is because Theophilus is not yet certain about the gospel. We don’t know all of his story, we don’t know all of his baggage, we don’t know his family of origin and we don’t know how we heard about Jesus. We just don’t know. What we do know, clearly, is that somehow, this brother Theophilus is struggling with questions, wrestling with the same questions that many of us have wrestled with, are wrestling with, or will wrestle with soon. Theophilus isn’t yet certain that this stuff right here is true. He’s not yet certain that the gospel can be trusted. He’s not yet fully 100% certain that the Bible is reliable, and he’s wrestling with questions like: Is Jesus really the son of God? Was Jesus really without sin? I mean, come on, can I rely on that? Could Jesus really do miracles? Can the teachings of Jesus actually be trusted? When I hear or read the teachings of Jesus, can I bet my life on that? Was Jesus really born of a virgin? Was Mary really a virgin? Seriously? Did Jesus really die for my sin? That’s a big deal if it’s true. Did he die for my sin? Did he really rise from the grave? I’m talking physically. I’m talking, did he physically come out of the grave, real body, everything? How can I know? How can I be certain? And here’s the deal, y’all. We don’t know whether or not Theophilus was a non-Christian who at some point had heard about Jesus before, and that’s why Luke is writing to him, or if maybe he’s a Christian who just right now is struggling with doubt, like we all often do. We don’t know which one of those is true. And frankly, guess what? I don’t think we’re supposed to know because it doesn’t matter.
The truth is, whether you’re here today and you’re a non-Christian who isn’t certain that Jesus really is who he says he is, or whether you’re a Christian who sometimes doubts, the fact is we all need a gigantic dose of the same thing. You know what it is? Certainty. We want certainty. Because imagine how your tomorrow might look if you were certain this stuff is true? How might your life be completely different if you were certain Jesus really is who He said he is? Jesus really is the Son of God, God in the flesh. He really is the Savior to all who will trust in him. How would your life be different tomorrow if you were 100% certain that Jesus really died for all of your sin, past, present, and future? They are forgiven forever. How might your life be different if you were absolutely certain that Jesus really did rise from the grave physically? Which means if He is resurrected, then it’s a resurrection for you, which means that eternal life is certain, which means there is more to this life than just this life. Are you kidding me? How might you spend your time and how might you spend your money and how might you parent your kids and how might you love your spouse and how might you engage your initial community group and how might you actually participate in the Lord’s day and all that God says? How might all that stuff look different if you were 100% certain of this?
So here’s Theophilus and many of us asking, “How can I be certain? How can I know? How can I trust it?” And all of a sudden Luke comes along and says, “I know how you can be certain.” And then he walks outside and he hitches a ride on a camel and he goes and does a bunch of interviews. For years and years, like a good doctor conducting a real detailed autopsy, he sits down over and over and over again with the eyewitnesses. And that’s exactly how we got the book of Luke. Traveling for years, knocking on doors, tracking folks down, and he writes it all down. Interviews with the people who walked with Jesus and who talked with Jesus and who were taught by Jesus and who were fed by Jesus and who saw Jesus nailed to the cross and who touched Jesus after he rose from the grave and who watched Jesus ascend into heaven. He sat down with the eyewitnesses for a long time, over and over and over again, and he wrote it all down. Has it ever occurred to you that the reason why we have 41 extra stories in the gospel of Luke that we don’t read in any other gospel is precisely because of the unique interviews Luke did with the eyewitnesses? Have you ever been reading the Bible, especially the gospels, and wondered why that story is in here and John didn’t say anything about it? Seems like it would be a big deal. You ever wonder why, in the gospel of Luke, you read about Jesus as a 12-year-old in the temple and that’s the only place it’s written? Do you ever wonder why that is? You know what scholars tell us? It’s because of what Luke did. He interviewed Mary. She’s an old woman at this point. And he sits down with Mary. “Mary, tell me again. Tell me again that story of how you and Joseph forgot Jesus.” It’s like the inspiration for the movie Home Alone. And he’s back there and you’re gone and you’re like, Jesus, and you run all back. Tell me that story again. And he writes it all down. Mary, tell me again. Hold on, Mary, tell me again. They say that after Gabriel announced to you that you were going to have Jesus, they say you sang a song. That’s what they say. They say you sang a song. What were the lyrics? What did you sing? Mary, what did you feel when you saw Jesus on that cross? And we don’t know what she said. Maybe she said something like, “It felt like a sword pierced my soul.” In fact, that’s what a prophet said. Jesus was a baby. It was Simeon, in the temple. That’s what he said was going to happen. That’s exactly what it felt like when I saw my son on that cross. It felt like a sword pierced my soul. And what did Luke do? He wrote it all down. Word for word for word, so that a doubting friend named friend of God could be certain that he could really be God’s friend.
Listen, what does it say to us about the heart of God that He would care so much about one dude? He cared so much about one individual named Theophilus that he would use Dr. Luke to write two books of the Bible for one dude. What does it say to us about God’s heart for the individual, God’s heart for doubters, God’s heart for wrestlers and strugglers, that God would say, “you know what, this matters, and this should not be ignored or brushed off. I care deeply about this.” So you know what, here is Luke and Acts. That you might be certain, because certainty that the gospel is true changes everything about us. I guess what Jesus says in Luke 19, verse 10 later on is totally true when he says this, “for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Maybe you’re not even a Christian and you’re kicking the tires and you don’t feel godly because of what you have experienced out there. But, you’re listening to all this. The fact is you’re just not certain that this is true. Listen, maybe you’re a Christian, you love Jesus, but you’re wrestling with some doubt. Can I tell you something, by the way? When you wrestle with doubt, that is not necessarily a sign that somehow you’re in sin. It’s a sign that we live in a fallen world. And that’s why God established the church and that’s why God established the Sabbath and that’s why God established the Lord’s Day and that’s why God gave us the Word of God and that’s why God gave us community and missional communities and circles instead of rows and rows instead of circles and all that stuff, is so that we might be certain of the gospel. And maybe you’re not a Christian and you’re just uncertain or maybe you are a Christian but you’re struggling with uncertainty. According to Luke, the way you become certain of the gospel is you stare at Jesus. And we’re going to stare at Jesus that we might have certainty because certainty changes everything.