Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Well, good morning. Good morning, Christchurch.
[00:00:05] Good to see all your beautiful faces here this morning. Everybody survived the windstorm. Okay. Wasn't sure if my house was gonna blow down, but it made it. But today, as we are getting ready for Easter, we're gonna start a new sermon series. And we're gonna be looking at the life of Jesus and in the Gospel of Luke. So some of you might know that there are four gospels which, these are biographies of Jesus in the New Testament, and each one has a little bit of a different emphasis. And Easter, we're going to be looking through Luke. We're not gonna be able to cover all of Luke. I'm gonna be skipping around a little bit, but it's gonna be a good study. So we're gonna start that today. But just before we do, would you pray?
[00:00:54] Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you, Lord, for your grace and your goodness to us. And Lord, I pray that you would bless us and help us and guide us. Lord. Help us to see the certainty, the confidence that we can have in you. And Lord, I pray as we look at Luke, that, Father, as we read these things, your spirit would make them clear and make them real to us. And I ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
[00:01:26] Well, at my house the other day, I was splitting some logs, like just kind of little ones. I have this cool little hatchet and I love doing that. You know, you just feel like a man. Even though it's like a baby hatchet, it still is enough, you know, I'm a pastor, I read books and stuff, so this is a nice balance to that.
[00:01:51] And I was just kinda splitting them, getting them ready, and then I came across this one log. And usually they go pretty easily.
[00:02:01] Cause I've been working out.
[00:02:06] Yeah, I don't know why you're laughing at that.
[00:02:10] But anyway, so I came to this one log and I was, you know, went for it and it was like nothing. And then like several more attempts and this thing was not. I could not break it. It was just like going in there, but nothing was happening. I broke out like a mini sledgehammer to pound the top of it. I could not get this thing split. It was like just indestructible. And so finally then I was like, well, I'm just going to burn it, you know, in the fire. And then I tried to do that. It really didn't even burn very well. I was like, what is up with this thing? You know, it just won't crack. It won't break no matter what I do. And I think it's kind of a good picture of what we're gonna see in the Gospel of Luke. Because what the Gospel of Luke is gonna say is that ultimately, Christianity is kind of like that. It's unbreakable and it won't crack under the questions that we might have. Maybe some of us today, we're coming in here and we're trying to understand and explore what faith means. We're trying to understand who God is. We're trying to determine what we believe about Jesus and the Bible and all those kinds of things. And I'm so glad that you're here. And what Luke is going to show us is that our biggest questions and our toughest questions, it won't crack the truth and the reality of Jesus and what he did and what his life means. The greatest challenges of our life, the most difficult moments of pain and struggle. Luke's going to say, hey, your faith in Christ, it won't crack. It's solid ground.
[00:04:01] And it will be enough to carry us through all the questions, the seasons, the challenges, and the things that we face in this life. And so what I wanna talk to you about today is that when we build our lives on the message of Jesus Christ, when we build our lives on who he is and relating to him and knowing him and following him and serving him, we are building our lives on solid ground. And we all need that, because all of us have thought something was solid in our life, and then it turned out it wasn't. And all of us have kind of put our hope and expectation on something, only to find out, like, man, that's a lot more hollow than I thought it was. And Luke is gonna say, hey, at the end of the day, there is nothing more solid than the person of Jesus Christ. So we're gonna begin at Luke, Chapter one. And I'm just gonna read a couple verses to you today, just the first couple. And this is his beginning, his introduction. He says this in as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us. Now, that first sentence is really, really important. The word accomplish could also be fulfilled. And it's really not among us, but it's actually in us. So he says, I'm writing, as many have done before me, a story, an account, a narrative of the things that have been fulfilled for us in us. The things that have been accomplished for us in us. So this is first and foremost a story about fulfillment, a story about accomplishment. He goes on, 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. This is the guy that he's kind of writing this all to now. The author is this guy named Luke. And what we know from history is that Luke was a doctor.
[00:06:27] He was a dermatologist. I'm just kidding.
[00:06:32] But he was making sure you're paying attention. He was a doctor.
[00:06:37] And, you know, we don't know all kinds of things about him, but what we can tell from the way that he writes is he certainly was very educated. And I think in any era of history, to become a doctor requires sort of a studious mind, commitment, all these kinds of things. And we see this in how Luke writes about Jesus, that he's not coming at this haphazardly, he's coming at this methodically. Which is what you want as a doctor, right? You don't want, like. You're like, hey, Doc, how's it going? He's like, I'm just winging it. Let's cut you open, see what happens. You don't want a doctor like that. You want a doctor that's like, here's all the steps. I'm thinking through it. And this is how Luke writes. This is how Luke approaches the story of Jesus. And he's saying, hey, I talked to the eyewitnesses. I talked to the people who were there. I looked at everything that's been written that's been said about Jesus, and I've brought it all together so that you can understand. And then look at this. Ultimately, that you may have certainty. That's what this is all about, certainty. Or you might have more confidence that this all is real, that this all matters for our life, concerning the things you have been taught. And so as we go through this, that's what my prayer is for you. That if you're here today and you're still, like, exploring faith and discerning faith, my prayer is you would have certainty about what Luke writes about Jesus. That it's true. It's true in history, but it's true today for each of us. And you would have confidence in that. And if you do believe those things, and if you do know those things, then my prayer is that you'd be strengthened in that, that your confidence would just grow, your trust in Jesus would grow. You would have a deeper conviction about the reality of these things in your life. And so that's what the aim of this Is. Now, let's begin it. Luke begins, and he tells us that this is a story about what Jesus has accomplished for us and for the world. And I think that that line is so easy to read over, but it's so important. Cause here's why Christianity is about first recognizing what God has done for us. That's the beginning point. Now, this is very different.
[00:09:16] If you were probably to read a lot of other books from other religions in the world, do you know what a lot of those would begin with? They would say, hey, here's what you need to do.
[00:09:28] You need to pray like this, you need to fast like this. You need to do these things, you need to go to these places. You need to empty yourself of all. But here's the starting point of Christianity. It's not what God is demanding out of you, but it is what God has fulfilled and accomplished for you. Do you see the difference? And this is a radically different starting point. And Luke says, hey, number one, this is an account of fulfillment. This is an account that, if you really understand, will fulfill something in you. And it will fulfill for you what desperately needs fulfilled. Now, there's a lot of layers to this, but let me just share an idea from C.S. lewis with you. C.S. lewis was this great author, and he was an Oxford professor. He was an atheist who became a Christian. Remarkable story. But C.S. lewis says that in our lives, every appetite that you have has an outlet that makes sense, right? You're thirsty, and you can go get a drink of water, you're hungry, you have the appetite for hunger, and you can go get food, you're tired, and you can go sleep, you're lonely, you can go talk with someone or connect with a friend. He said, all of life, there is this connection between our appetite and something that fulfills it. But CS Lewis said this. But he says, but don't we all know there's a spiritual appetite within all of us?
[00:11:11] That there's an appetite within all of us that says, man, isn't there more?
[00:11:16] We're like, yeah, yeah, cool. Great. Food's great and great vacations are awesome, and money's great to have and success is good. But then you're still like, but I'm still hungry for something more. There's a deep spiritual appetite. And so what CS Lewis says, he says, guess what? There is a corresponding fulfillment, but it's not anything in this world.
[00:11:43] It's something that can only be fulfilled beyond this world. And this is what Luke is saying, that fulfillment is in God. And Luke says, hey, and you Know it's come and it's here, and it's found in the person of Jesus Christ. Now, here's the other way to understand. This is that, again, this is about what has been accomplished for us. Luke says. Now, I recently took a class. That's why I was gone last week. And when I got the syllabus for this class, it was the most intense syllabus I've ever gotten. You know, it has all the reading, all the assignments. And it was like. The reading was insane. And the assignments, I was like, that's too many. And then they were all, you know, any students? Can I get an amen on that? You've been there. You're like, no, this is. You're violating some ethic. I don't know what it is, but this is wrong.
[00:12:44] And so I got this, and I was looking at it, and I actually had to do, like, a double take. Cause I was like, am I reading this wrong? It was also in a compressed timeline. So I was like, this is the most demanding syllabus I've ever seen. And I will tell you, I didn't do it all.
[00:13:00] Yeah, I did it.
[00:13:03] Cause you know what I learned? C's get degrees.
[00:13:08] Sorry.
[00:13:12] If you're in school. Forget that I said that, all right? You didn't hear that from me. I'm sorry, parents.
[00:13:18] But I did listen. You gotta know how to get by. You know what I'm saying? I left a lot of reading on the table, but I Googled some things, so we're all good.
[00:13:30] But I was like, this is impossible. Like, I really don't think it's possible to do all that it wanted me to. I stand by that.
[00:13:41] And I'm not gonna sign up for an impossible task.
[00:13:45] But you know what? But many times when we think about. When we think about a relationship with God, we think that's what we're gonna get. We're gonna get this impossible syllabus.
[00:13:58] We're gonna just get this huge over. And it's like, many of us. I know many of you, you're like, I already got enough demands on my life.
[00:14:08] You wake up and your time's not your own. Cause you've gotta give it to your family and your spouse and your work. And then you come home and you're like, whew, I just need a second to breathe. But you can't even have that amen. Because there's always. And as the time goes on, your demands are going up, not down. Amen. I know we got a lot of busy people Juggling a million things in this place. And so then many times we look at a relationship with God and we're like, oh, this is gonna be. This is gonna be just more of that.
[00:14:44] This is gonna be just that on steroids.
[00:14:48] But Luke shows us something totally different.
[00:14:52] Luke says, no, no, no, what we are gonna see is not this syllabus, but we're gonna see God fulfilling for us what we could never do for ourselves. God doing something in us that desperately needs done, but can only happen by him and through him and for him. And the starting point of Christianity is recognizing what God has done for us in Jesus. And everything else comes after that, everything else comes after that. And Luke start there. Now, Luke also says something super important. He says, I put this together carefully, accurately and reliably.
[00:15:40] Luke says, as I wrote this, I did not. Again, I did not do this in a haphazard fashion. See, many times people kind of will criticize, like the Gospels, and they'll say, oh, yeah, those are just kind of. People made those up and they were changed. And people will kind of just throw out accusations like that. Luke is already addressing that and he's saying, no, no, no, this is what I'm telling you is true. It's based in reality. It's not wishful thinking. I've done my homework, I've done my research. I verified it. And what's amazing about Luke's Gospel is if you compare it with what we know from other historical resources, you will see it's incredibly reliable. And in fact, I would say this for the whole New Testament. When you compare it with all these historical resources that we know through archeology and through historians, you will see that what the Bible says, it corresponds to what it says happened to what was going on in the world, to these events. Let me just give you one example. This is a letter from a Roman senator. This is one of the earliest times where the things that happen in the Gospels are mentioned. And I'm going to read it to you. Just bear with me. And what he's writing about is a fire that happened in Rome.
[00:17:14] And the Emperor Nero blamed this fire on the Christians.
[00:17:20] He actually started the fire.
[00:17:23] Yeah, and he blamed it on the Christians. So this letter is about what was happening there, and it says this. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the senator belief that the conflagration was the result of an order, consequently, to get rid of the report. Nero, this is the emperor, so he's Saying, nero tried to hide this. He fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Crestians, which is just Christians, but it's the Latin spelling brought over. But they're called Christians by the populace. Now, that detail is actually important because one of the things that the Book of Acts says is early Christians did not call themselves Christians.
[00:18:15] Other people called themselves the culture around them called themselves Christians. Christians didn't say, hey, I'm a Christian. They said, no, we're followers of the Way, or we're followers of Jesus. But the groups around them said, oh, you're Christians. And that's where that name came from. Now, it's just interesting. He's affirming that. He's saying, yeah, that is actually true. He goes on, Christus Christ, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius, as at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate.
[00:18:52] So again, this is just confirming what the Gospels say, that Jesus was killed by Pontius Pilate under the reign of Tiberius, which is the right times. So this is all lining up historically in a most mischievous superstition, which we believe is true, the resurrection from the dead. But he's saying, hey, they were claiming that thus, check for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, where Christianity started, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, that it started around Jerusalem and it spread to Rome, which is again, exactly what we see. The Scriptures teach that it started as a small movement, but as people began to share the message of Jesus, it spread where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Like, yeah, Rome, it's a cesspool is what he's saying, basically.
[00:19:53] And it goes on, but I'll just stop there. But here you can tell this guy is no friend to Christianity. Do you see that? He is not like pro Christianity, but everything he's saying lines up.
[00:20:08] And I could go into more detail about this, but I'm not gonna torture you this morning, but everything he said, it lines up.
[00:20:17] Wow. Yeah. All right. Bad choice of language there after that quote. But everything lines up with what we see. Now, here's just a couple other things. All that I'm saying is that Luke did his homework and that if you do your homework and I do my homework, we'll see that this is not made up, this is not fabricated, and this also hasn't been changed a bunch. Like, people will say, there is I got to hear recently a speaker named Peter Williams, and he wrote a great book called the Reliability of the New Testament. And in it he has a lot of really powerful arguments to say that, hey, when we're reading the New Testament, we're really reading these historical events and the teachings of Jesus and what really happened during this time. And he has all kinds of arguments for it. But I'll just tell you a couple that I think are kind of cool is number one, and this may be something I didn't really think about too much before, but there's all these names in the New Testament and historians are able to figure out what were popular names in certain places at certain times. That still happens today. Right. Like I remember when we were trying to name our kids, I'm like, what's the name list? You know, and you pull it up and it's like, here's the top 10 for, you know, 20, 24 or whatever.
[00:21:51] My grandma's name was Harriet. That was probably a more popular name then. I don't meet too many Harriet's today. My name is Chet. It's never been popular, nor does it look good in the future.
[00:22:09] So I don't know, there's anomalies there, I guess.
[00:22:14] But there are names that are popular at certain times. So here's what this means when you read the Gospels. This is really interesting. All the names match the popularity of the region that they're in at the time. Now here's what's really interesting. There are other books that get written later. The Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary. Maybe some of you have heard of some of these things. The names in there don't match the time.
[00:22:45] And it's a very small detail, but it shows that, hey, again, there's an accuracy here. There's something right. And there's all kinds of these, these kind of minute arguments that seem small on the surface, but they really show the credibility of the Gospels of what Luke's saying. So all of this to say, and I could go on and on, there's botanical knowledge. They talk about certain plants that correspond to certain areas. Geography that all lines up. We went up to this place and down to this place. And all that means that this would have had to be from people who knew what those places were. You're like, oh, there used to be a gas station 10 years ago at that place. Oh, you grew up here? Well, it's that kind of thing that we see that you can tell there's real local knowledge. So all of that is to say that when we're reading this, we're reading something reliable, we're reading something accurate, we're reading something that has been researched and, and delivered intact to us. And again, there's a lot we can talk about that, but that's just to give you a taste of it. And then Luke says in all of this is that we would have certainty about Jesus.
[00:24:06] That's what Luke says. This is what it's all about. That we would know about Jesus. There's this great English preacher, his name's Dick Lucas. And he said. He said, at the end of the day, God does not give us a watertight argument for his existence. He gives us a watertight person.
[00:24:28] And what I would just encourage you with is that when you and I, when we look at the life of Jesus and we see what he taught, we see how he treated people, we see the things that he did and the things that he didn't do, and we see that, the impact that we have. I'm telling you, when you take the time and we take the time to look at him, to think about him, to open our minds and our hearts to him, we will see the power and the reality of God in an undeniable way. It's a watertight person. And the more that my confidence in Christ grows, the more things in my life really change.
[00:25:14] In fact, I would say that what I see in people in our church family is that the people who have walked with him the longest in this church, we've got some amazing men and women of faith in this church. Like, amazing. They have just. They have known God and walked with him in church. They didn't walk with him. Cause the path was always easy. They didn't walk with him because the sun was always shining. That they walked with him in the darkness, they walked with him in the pain. And when you talk to those people just around this church, and I believe this would be true probably anywhere, but when you talk to those people, they will talk to you most about the goodness and mercy of God in their life.
[00:26:01] They'll say, yeah, I went through cancer, I went through loss, I went through this pain, I went through this life struggle, I went through this. And you'll be like, you went through all that. And they'll say, yeah, but God has been so good to me. God has been so. And see, because, you know, their confidence in Christ has just grown year after year. And then they look at their life and now what they see is the fingerprints of his mercy, of his goodness, of his love everywhere. And you and I will, too. The more that we grow in our confidence, our certainty about him, the more that we begin to see all of our life really, really differently, and we see the goodness and the mercy of God. It also means that as I grow in my certainty of Christ, that God also gives me new beginnings.
[00:26:57] See, the New Testament says that when we commit our lives to Christ, it says, you're a new creation.
[00:27:05] Like all. Everything that came before, it's gone.
[00:27:11] Your life doesn't have to be directed and dictated by all of that, but there is a whole new beginning and a new future. I.
[00:27:22] I had this really ratty extension cord, but it was, like, the only long extension cord that I had. It was green and it was so twisted up that you know what I'm talking about, where you try to wrap it up nicely and it just won't budge. But I had this thing. I used it for my leaf blower and other stuff, and every time I would get it out, I'd be like, oh, this is annoying. And I would unwind it the best I could, but it was always a mess, then try and put it back. And then the thought occurred to me. I was like, I could just buy a new one now. I did this for years. Granted, like, year. I was like, for 20 bucks on Amazon, I can solve my problem right there. And so last week, I finally did it. Church. I bit the bullet. Thank you.
[00:28:12] Thank you.
[00:28:17] I don't know how to feel about that. Applause. I'm like, I tossed it. Yep.
[00:28:28] But, you know, sometimes it's nice to have a fresh beginning, isn't it?
[00:28:32] Sometimes the past is just a little too much to unravel and to keep bringing out and to keep dealing with and to keep messing with. But, you know, in Christ, there is new beginnings.
[00:28:47] Actually, every single day. You have a new beginning today.
[00:28:52] His mercy is made new every morning. And some of us, man, we're wrestling with the past. We're trying to untangle it. And guess what? You're not going to do it. But Christ can set you free from it. Christ can forgive it. Christ can heal it. Christ can lead us out of it. Church, you with me on this? And as our confidence in him grows, the grip of all that junk on our life, it weakens. And you know, what begins to grow in its place is new life, new desires, new ways of wanting to serve people and love people, and new ways of wanting to connect to God. Some of us, it wasn't that long ago where you wouldn't catch us dead in church.
[00:29:42] And now you're Here.
[00:29:44] Why?
[00:29:46] Because God is doing something new in you? Because God is creating new desires. Some of us. Maybe the scripture. Like, we wouldn't have made time to read it, to understand it, to make it part of our day, but. But now we are.
[00:30:02] Why? Because God's bringing new life to us. My wife has gotten into sourdough. Have you heard? Yeah, it's actually the fault of the women in this church.
[00:30:16] But I'm not mad about it. Cause actually, I'm a little bit mad. But let me explain.
[00:30:26] I don't know if y'all know the sourdough rage, but there is a fresh loaf of bread in our house, like, every day.
[00:30:36] Yeah, pretty much. Not every day, but a lot. And, like, rolls and all this stuff, but they come out warm and they're sitting there and. Yeah. And I can't just have one piece.
[00:30:54] Moderation is for cowards. Amen. No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding, kidding.
[00:31:00] So my bread intake has gone up tremendously.
[00:31:05] It's so good. And the other day. Cause there's a sourdough feeder. Deal. I don't know how this all works, but the other day, Allie said. She's like, hey, can you feed the sourdough? And I just. I thought that was funny. I was like, it's like another kid. Emmy, Abby, Teddy, and the sourdough starter. Make them all lunch. And so I did, and I fed it. And it worked great. It loved it.
[00:31:35] I said it was one of the better meals it had that week.
[00:31:41] The way it was looking at me, that's how it communicated it.
[00:31:46] Yeah, that's right. That's right.
[00:31:49] But you know why I fed it? Because it gives me a lot of good gifts.
[00:31:54] It produces a lot of good things. Let me get back on track here, but here's the truth and here's the point. That when you feed your soul with Christ, everything good grows out of that.
[00:32:13] Everything good. All the life that you and I need. That's where it comes from. Him. Him and him alone. And Luke says he's trustworthy, he's worth it. He's here. So my prayer is that your confidence in him would grow. It would grow that we could have a real certainty in our life. I want to challenge you through this series to start reading this week the Book of Luke. As we go through it, just read one chapter a day, and by Easter, you'll have it done. And you'll even have a couple days you can miss in there. So you'll have, you know, some mulligans, some freebies. But I want you to read it for yourself. And we're gonna be talking about it. And as you read it, I want you just to whisper a prayer to God and say, God, would you give me more certainty about these things? And ultimately, would you give me more certainty about Jesus himself? Let's pray.
[00:33:16] Father, we thank you so much for all that Luke did to write this down and to pass this to us.
[00:33:27] Father, we pray that you, Lord, would be at work in each of our hearts.
[00:33:36] I pray, Father, that these things would make sense to us in a very real way.
[00:33:43] That, Lord, if today there are barriers in our heart to connecting to you, I pray that, Lord, you would overcome them.
[00:33:52] Lord, I pray we could see that you are the solid rock that all of our lives need. You are the firm foundation.
[00:34:04] You are the ground to build our lives on.
[00:34:09] And everything else, Lord, is sinking sand.
[00:34:13] Father, help us to see what Luke is showing us. Help us to receive it by your grace. And help us, Lord, to have a rich confidence. In the name the goodness and the love and the work of Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.
