Written For Your Sake

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0:01because we were in the Advent season, the Christmas season, so we went through the stories of Mary and Elizabeth and Zechariah, but now we're going to go all the way to the very beginning of Luke. We're going to start with his preface to his book. Now, let me ask you, when you read a book, do you read the preface or the introduction? Show of hands, who reads it? Who skips it almost all the time? That's fair. Yeah, you know, that makes sense. I like to read them just in case they're important.

0:36They're not always important. I started a book recently, and the author said in the preface, please read this preface, basically. And I read it, and it was just him thanking people, which is nice, you know, but I didn't have to read that. He tricked me, kind of. I'm going to keep reading them anyway, because occasionally it really, really helps you know what's going to come after that. It helps you know how to read the book. It's not always true, but it is true in Luke's gospel.

1:04This is four verses. It's one sentence. One sentence in English. It's also one sentence in Greek. It's one sentence that tells you what his aim is and how he did it. It's really important for understanding the whole book. Luke is the longest book in the New Testament by word count. You might not have known that. It's the only gospel that has a sequel, the book of Acts. It's part two of Luke. All together, this actually makes Luke the greatest contributor to the New Testament by word count.

1:37You might not have known that either. And it all begins with one sentence. One sentence that helps you get acquainted with Luke and Acts together. And that's what I'm preaching on today. So let's read this today. Let's come to it humbly. Let's come to it seeking God and knowing that he's going to minister to us through his trustworthy word. This is Luke verses 1 through 4. It's in your bulletins. It's also up on the screen behind me. 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 you have been taught.

2:40Pray with me. Lord, we thank you for your word. This is a gift to us. Help us to come to it humbly, eagerly. Please minister to us. Help us not just to hear it with our ears, but with our hearts. Draw us close to you. Change us through your word. Meet us today where we are. Help us to pay close attention to be changed as your people. Jesus, we pray this in your name.

3:11So the title today of my sermon is Written for Your Sake, because that's what Luke was. It was written for your sake. Here's the main point. It's the big idea of the passage. It's a reliable account of God's work to strengthen us. A reliable account of God's work to strengthen our faith. So let's start with this. We're not going to go exactly linearly through the passage, but let's start with this. Who was Luke and why did he write this? I'm sorry.

3:36Who was Luke and how did he write this? So Luke was a leader in the early church. He was not one of the 12 apostles, but he was part of Paul's ministry team, part of Paul's entourage that traveled around with Paul. He was with him for many of his travels and missionary journeys. In the book of Acts, during the accounts of Paul's travels, occasionally it switches from they did this and they went here to we did this. This happened to us. So it switches to the first person.

4:10Paul also refers to him three times in his writings. So I'm going to put those up on the screen here, or actually grace in this. Paul held Luke in great esteem. He said, Ephrathus, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demos, and Luke, my fellow workers. Luke alone is with me, as in 2 Timothy. And then in Colossians, Luke, the beloved physician, greets you. So Paul attests to Luke being with him.

4:40Paul held him in great esteem. He calls him beloved. He calls him my fellow worker. Considering someone like Paul to say those things, that's a pretty high compliment. That's high praise. The other thing about him is he was a well-educated Gentile. Based on his name, some things that he writes, and from ancient testimony from outside the Bible, Luke was not ethnically Jewish. He was coming into the faith from a Greek background, a Hellenistic background, not from a Jewish or Judaic background.

5:13But he did know an awful lot about the Old Testament. He must have done his research. As you can see there, according to Paul, Luke was a physician. I don't know what a physician was exactly like back in that time. Obviously, he didn't have quite the same training and extensive knowledge that our doctors do these days. But among his peers, among his contemporaries, he was an educated man. You can tell he was educated by his Greek. His Greek is very complex.

5:42It's very well-written. It's got very technical vocabulary. It's more high Greek. When I was taking Greek in seminary, we didn't start with Luke. That was for the later classes, after we'd learned a little bit. Because it was more complex. So you can tell in his Greek that he was an educated man. Now let's dive in a little bit more about things that are even more helpful for us and helpful for us to understand what he was doing here. He was methodical.

6:15He was methodical. Luke writes, many have undertaken to compile a narrative. The phrase compile a narrative, it's a technical term that a historian would have used in that time for something factual, a report, something that has facts in it, not stories, not something made up, a factual account. Many Bible scholars believe that Luke is writing this in the early 60s. So that would have been 35 years or so after Jesus died. So, it's strongly possible that one of the people that he's referring to here was Mark.

6:53So Mark's gospel probably was already written at this point. So he had Mark's gospel available to him. Or at least some writings that became Mark's gospel. Now, this is important. He's not disputing these other narratives. He's just coming alongside them. He's adding his own testimony to the account. He's building on precedent. That's what he means when he says others have undertaken to compile a narrative. That phrase there, it means that he believes what they've written.

7:23He's not contradicting them. But to come alongside them, he's got to do his own research. He wants to do his own research. In verse 3, he says that he followed all things closely for some time past.

7:37Now, he's gone back to the beginning of the story. He's done careful research. He's comprehensive about it. You can see this because Luke begins with an extensive account of before Jesus was born, how he was born, who was there. You have a couple of accounts of him as an infant. You've got the only account, if I'm remembering correctly, of him as a youth. That's next week that I'll preach on. So, he's gone from some time past, meaning he's covered the whole scope of Jesus' life even before it.

8:13When you read Luke, you're reading history. I want you to know that first of all. Luke is a historian. He did a great job at it. There's a guy, his name was Sir William Ramsey. He was a renowned archaeologist and Bible scholar in the late 1800s. That's him. He, unfortunately, he believed that biblical writers made up a lot of what they wrote, made up a lot of facts. He thought that most of the Bible was not credible. He was an archaeologist and he wanted to prove that the Bible was not all that credible.

8:52So, what he did was he traveled to the Near East. He did archaeological research, particularly about Luke's account in Acts. He tried to go to all the details there, the places that he named, the places that he went to, the sites that Luke is talking about. He did archaeological research for many years to try to prove that those facts are incorrect because then he could prove that, well, you can't trust the facts so you can't trust anything here.

9:21Not only did he not find what he was looking for, he found the opposite. He found over and over and over Luke's account was correct. He found things that even current archaeologists didn't know about the time that were true in Luke. This is what he ends up saying and writing in one of his books. This former skeptic says this. You can put that up there, Grayson. Luke's history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness. Luke is a historian of the first rank.

9:52Not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense. In short, this author should be placed along with the greatest of historians. A former skeptic tried to prove what he already believed, came away with the complete opposite impression, the complete opposite conviction. So Luke is a historian. Another thing about Luke is he had access to eyewitnesses. He talked to them. Sometimes we read or we watch something that's in the genre of fictionalized history.

10:31Nikki and I are watching The Crown right now. Anybody else watching The Crown? So I know they consulted some people when they wrote this screenplay, right? But there are plenty of things where there's just two people in the room and you know that they didn't consult those two people. Last night we watched something that was Diana and Charles talking in the kitchen. There's no way that the people who wrote this talked to either one of them, right?

10:59So you're sitting there, well this is great drama to watch, but did this actually happen this way? This is, when you read the book of Luke this is not the same genre. This is not fictionalized history. This is history. Verse 2, Luke says this, those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us. The word delivered is a word that you would use when you pass along an oral account from I was there and this is what happened to somebody else.

11:34He travels with Paul and that those travels with Paul put him in contact with many people who were present for the events of Jesus' life. Look at this in Acts 21. Luke writes this, when we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. On the following day, Paul went in with us to James and all the elders were present. So Luke's in a room with all the people that walked and talked with Jesus. This is who he was with. And it's not just elders and leaders and apostles that he had contact with.

12:10He had access to the entire church community as he was traveling around. He had access to people like Zacchaeus, to the centurion whose servant was healed, to the widow of Nain whose son was brought back to life, all of which are only in Luke's account. So he had access to these people. He would have been able to speak to Mary, the mother of Jesus, to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, to Mary Magdalene, to Martha, to many women who were part of the whole team of disciples that followed around with Jesus.

12:49These are the eyewitnesses that he could interview and talk to in order to write this account. And that's exactly what he's saying that he did. Now finally, he wants to testify. He wants to give his account. After having followed all things closely for some time past, he wants to write an orderly account. He's compiling a narrative like people who've come before, the things that have been accomplished among us. This word accomplished means fulfilled.

13:23Luke doesn't want to just vomit all of the facts in front of you and have you sort out the meaning of it. He's going to say, here's what happened and here's the meaning behind it. Here's the significance behind it. Here's how it connects to God's story. It's an orderly account. We have this notion, a modern day notion that is not shared in the ancient world that if you're going to be a historian, you can't give any meaning to the events. You just have to report things.

13:54That was not the way ancient historians worked. They understood that you could report things and talk about the meaning behind them. And that's what Luke's doing. Luke is going to give us the facts but not just leave it there. He wants to talk about in the context of what came before, this is what all this means. These are acts that fit into a plan.

14:17So one of the things that I'm going to talk about in today's sermon is just give you some brief bullet points about the themes of Luke's gospel. And this is one throughout Luke. If you think back to the sermons about Mary and Elizabeth and Zechariah, you already see this theme come up. God keeps his promises. He's trustworthy. He keeps his promises. Luke will show us how those promises were kept through Jesus. How he connects the word of the Lord, how Jesus connects the word of the Lord and the great work of salvation that has been promised.

14:57Those things find fulfillment in Jesus. Luke wants you to know that God is not just winging it. He's not guessing. God didn't switch to plan B when he sent Jesus. You know that, right? He didn't switch to plan B. God has no plan B. He's got one plan that he was always going to do and it was always going to be through Jesus. This plan has been in motion since creation, the great plan to provide redemption, to ransom people, from bondage.

15:35This plan, when we stop and think on it, when we see how Luke connects the events that are happening with God's plan, we know that God is in control, that God is merciful, that God is strong, that God is able to do far more than we ask or imagine.

15:55Isn't it good to know that God has a plan? Rather than just worshiping someone that we hope he gets it right this time, it's not that it didn't work out, with Israel, and so I'm going to erase the blackboard and try again with Jesus. It's all one plan that is now reaching a fulfillment point in Jesus. So let's go to the second point. Who was he writing to? Well, this is a pretty easy answer. It's addressed to someone. It's addressed to most excellent Theophilus.

16:33Acts is addressed to the same person. If you look at Acts 1-1, you'll see that there. There's a lot of conjecture about this person. Theophilus means lover of God. That's what that name means. This might be a pseudonym. This might not be his real name, but then again, this was a really common name at the time. Remember, the Greek and Romans had lots of gods, so it would have been normal for someone, even someone in the secular world at that time, to name their child lover of God.

17:02Now, the title that he gives him here, Most Excellent, it probably means that this guy is part of nobility. He's part of the noble classes. Many people think that he was a wealthy patron who helped fund all of the work that Luke put into this. Others suggest that he was a Roman official that was involved in Paul's trial that was taking place while Luke was writing this. These might have been documents that Luke was sending to kind of a test to the case for Paul.

17:37Theophilus is a Greek name. That, combined with the address to nobility, means he was almost certainly a Gentile. So here we have, in the book of Luke, the only book, plus Acts, written by a Gentile to a Gentile. That's pretty unusual. And that's a theme throughout this whole book. Based on this content, Luke intends for his gospel to be read by people who were not coming from a Jewish background. So if you're not coming from a Jewish background, this is the gospel for you.

18:09Not that the other gospels aren't for you, but Luke is specifically thinking of people who are not coming from a Judaic background. This brings us to another theme of Luke. Grace to humble outsiders. This is a big theme of Luke. I hope this is a theme that really encourages you. The salvation that Jesus accomplishes is not accessible by rank, by privilege, by social status. Those things don't get you in the door. To make that point, Luke shows repeatedly how God moves towards those who are on the fringes of society, the outcasts, the ones who seemingly have nothing to offer, the ones who other people have forgotten about.

18:59Jesus moves towards those people. And so it shows that salvation is for anyone, anyone who believes, anyone. You're going to see some of these people show up in Luke's gospel, the poor, children, Gentiles, people with bad reputations, the sick, the lame, people from the wrong side of the tracks. This is who Jesus spends time with in Luke. And this is who responds to Jesus talking in Luke.

19:37Another thing, women play a frequent and prominent role in Luke. Significant part in the book of Luke. There's roughly 16 episodes, narrative episodes, of actual people, and I'm not talking about parables, there's roughly 16 episodes that are unique to Luke, that don't occur in any other gospel. Over half of them have to do with women.

20:06Women receive Jesus' loving attention. Women too in this society were on the fringes, had very little power, had very little social capital. They were weak, they were marginalized, they were overlooked, but not by Jesus. Not by Jesus.

20:27Meanwhile, when the powerful and the rich and the elite appear in Luke's gospel, they're dressed down. They're rebuked. They're reminded that their earthly power and their riches cannot save them. Some of them respond to Jesus too.

20:48Friends, have you ever felt marginalized? Have you ever felt vulnerable? Have you ever felt overlooked? Have you ever been an outcast, an outsider? Or, if you are popular, do you ever get tired of working so hard to stay there?

21:11Luke's gospel is for you. I've got good news for you. God's criteria of acceptance is easier than the world's. It's easier to be accepted by God than it is to be accepted by the world. That's why Jesus says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

21:33All it takes is humility and calling on him in faith. He delights to display his glory in lifting up the humble. Maybe even someone that everyone else around them thinks there's no good to be found there. There's no value there. Not according to Jesus. That's what the book of Luke tells us.

21:59Lisa Page read this earlier. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 1, 27-29. This is just a portion of what she read. God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and to despised in the world. Even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

22:28This is the community that God brings together. So maybe you're hearing this and maybe there's some part of you that's beginning to take an interest because you have been overlooked. You have felt like an outcast. You have felt like you're on the outside looking in. You're never going to be one of the cool kids. Jesus has his eye on you. It's good to be identified with this but it takes humility right to say yep I'm one of the foolish. I'm one of the weak.

23:03That's me. And God used me to shame the strength of this world. This is the community that God brings together. It reminds me of the island of Misfit Toys from the old stop-motion animation Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Maybe somebody watched it. Did anyone watch it this past Christmas? It's so creepy. No, it's very good. It's good. The stop-motion can be a little creepy but it's also very endearing. So this island, in case you don't remember, Hermie and Rudolph and Yukon Cornelius, they end up landing on this island and they find all these toys.

23:49Toys that all have some defect that makes them completely unwanted by other kids, right? There's a Charlie in the Box because it's supposed to be Jack in the Box. Who wants a Charlie in the Box? A Charlie in the Box, a spotted elephant, a train with square wheels that doesn't roll, a boat that doesn't float, a cowboy that rides an ostrich, and my favorite, a water pistol that squirts jelly.

24:15These toys are waiting for someone to want them. The people of God have something in common, but it's not that we all fixed our problems so that we could get in the door. Like it or not, this is the community that God is bringing together. This is what the book of Luke shows us. It's flawed people, defective people that come to Jesus humbly and say, Jesus, I can't fix myself. I can't get right with you on my own. I'm calling out to you in humility.

24:50Please have grace and mercy on me. That's who we are. That's who this church is. Praise God that it's not about our own strength and our own wisdom. Anybody else liberated by that?

25:15that it's his grace to defective people. Alright, last point. Why did he write it? Luke wrote this gospel with a goal. He had a goal in mind and he's going to tell us. Verse 4, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught. Certainty could also be given as safety, security, stability. Luke wants Theophilus and Gentiles like him to grow in their assurance of what they've been taught, about what took place during Jesus' life, what he said and what he did, about his suffering, his death, his resurrection, and about what it all means and how they should respond to it.

26:09Luke wants to do everything he can to demonstrate the reliability of this, that you can rely on it, that you can lean into it, this is a revelation that if we respond to it, it's going to upend and reorient our entire life. So it's got to be sure. I've never parachuted before, but I'm open to it. And you know why? Because from the reading that I've done, the parachute would have a tag on it, a tag that confirms that it was packed by someone who was rigorously trained and certified to pack that parachute.

26:53You can also choose to pack your own parachute. That's not going to be what I choose. Now, you ever buy a shirt and it's got a tag in it that says inspected by so-and-so? I throw those things away. Who cares? I can inspect my own shirt. But when I'm jumping out of an airplane, that tag's a must. I'm not leaving that plane unless I see that tag on that parachute. Because it tells me that someone who knew what they were doing put it together. Then I'll get out and I'll float through the sky with that thing on my back.

27:30Some people say following Jesus is an act of blind faith. What they mean by that usually is it's faith in the complete absence of any evidence. Faith in the complete absence of any rationality. But if that were true, Luke would not have written this sentence. Right? Luke doesn't believe that's true, so you don't have to believe that's being a Christian undoubtedly involves faith. But it's not a blind faith. It's not a stupid faith. It's not a faith devoid or evidence or thinking or rationality.

28:08It's a very reasonable faith. You don't have to shut off your brain to be a Christian. God has given us proof upon proof and testimony upon testimony of his faithfulness and his power and his love and his glory. The faith is to believe what he has provided for us and we certainly need what he has provided for us. We need that certainty, that assurance because being a disciple is costly.

28:43Believers like Theophilus were facing difficulty. When Luke was writing this, they had left behind their former identity to be part of this new community, this motley crew. But this new community, it was made up from so many different people, so many different backgrounds who were now called to be family with one another, it didn't always work well. Read Corinthians sometime to hear about the mess that was happening in that church. Meanwhile, these new Christians like Theophilus were facing more and more opposition from the surrounding world.

29:18Persecution was coming. They were feeling insecure. They might be thinking, being in this community is difficult. We don't always get along. And the culture outside that used to feel so comfortable to me, so compatible to me, is now foreign and hostile. Is this really the way things are supposed to be, God? And Luke says, yes. It is the way it's supposed to be.

29:52Do you ever ask the same question? Is this really how things are supposed to be? Sometimes life in the church is hard. It's good, but it's hard. Meanwhile, you feel ill at ease in the world. You feel incompatible with it. Luke's gospel is for you. And he tells us, be assured, people of God, be assured you have a faithful savior that went ahead of you into a hostile world. He faced that ahead of you so that you can be saved and brought in and follow where he leads.

30:31That's the last theme of Luke that I'll highlight today. It was hard to narrow it down to three, but here it is, following our faithful savior. Luke shows that God's promised Messiah does not fit the stereotype that a lot of people expected. They expected a warrior king, somebody with a sword in his hand, sitting on a great steed, striding in and taking over the government. That's not the Messiah that God intended to give. His mission of salvation doesn't go around suffering, it goes through it.

31:08It takes it on. Through his death, this savior delivers the very people who disown him. You and me. In Luke's gospel, Jesus talks about being a disciple, what it means to follow him. He talks about the blessings of being in his family, but also the opposition that we will face. He calls us to face that difficulty faithfully, knowing with certainty that he has already endured and won the victory. Luke reveals Jesus to us and calls us to follow him, realistically follow him.

31:54We'll see that over and over in Luke, the realistic picture that it gives about what discipleship really means. But it's good to follow a savior that went ahead of us. He's not standing back and say, there you go. I'm going to give you some teaching and you go out and face that. He faced it first. He died so that we can live. He's won the victory and he hands it to us. We endure knowing that we will be victorious with him.

32:26This certainty is what God provides us through Luke. Church, let's draw strength and assurance from this reliable account of what God has already accomplished in Christ.

32:44through Christ and brought in outcasts like us. And let's tell that good news to more people who need to hear it. Who need to hear, are you tired of trying to be accepted by the world? Then find acceptance through humility and trusting in Jesus. That's the message of Luke. Let's pray.

33:14Lord, help us to be your faithful people. As we go through Luke, will you please nourish and strengthen us? May the goal that Luke had be accomplished. Help us to have certainty about the things we've been taught. Teach us again. Fill in the gaps for us. Lord, help us to see you for who you are. And help us to have an even greater faith, Lord. Help us to see the promises that were fulfilled so that we can follow Jesus where he leads us. Thank you for bringing in outcasts like me, like the people sitting here, flawed people who couldn't make their own way to you.

33:59Lord, you made a way through Jesus. We respond with praise today. We glorify your name. This is a good thing you have done. Thank you. Thank you for salvation in Christ and thank you for the message of it in Luke. Jesus, we love you and we pray this in your name.