The Gospel Keeps Expanding

Transcript

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[0:00] And it's time for our sermon. Our sermon text is Luke chapter 1, 1 through 4. Go ahead and take a look at that. Luke 1, 1 through 4 is in the bulletin that's printed at home. A few words of introduction before we begin.

[0:14] We're still in Easter season. Easter is moving on. And just to recap, week 1 of Easter, Easter Sunday, we talked about Mary Magdalene at the tomb finding Jesus. Week 2 was these two travelers to Emmaus. One of them's name was Cleopas. The other name we don't know. The third week of Easter last week was Paul meeting resurrected Christ on his way to Damascus. And so there's this progression we're seeing of people who have encountered Jesus and are telling the story about it. And last week we saw that Paul immediately began to preach and to teach at the synagogue. And he was baptized instantly. And so the other thing that we see is that hearing the gospel leads to action. Hearing the gospel leads to this active life. Now today we're going to look at the expansion of the gospel further into the world as Jesus commanded in Acts chapter 1 to his disciples to go out to all these places. And the Holy Spirit was going to help them. And so we have Paul was beginning then. His journey was to preach. He was going to preach in synagogue. And then later on in his ministry his pattern was to go to a synagogue first when he came to town. And he would basically talk for as long as people would listen to him. And after a while either some would be persuaded or some weren't.

[1:42] And then he would move on to Gentiles. And in the course of his travels he met a doctor named Luke. And as you read Acts, which was also written by Luke, you'll notice that in the narrative of Paul's journeys, at various points, instead of saying, Paul did such and such, or he did such and such, it starts to say, we did such and such. And we identify those places in the Acts of the Apostles as those times when Luke was Paul's traveling companion. And their paths crossed or intersected for various parts of Paul's journeys. And so Luke, we believe, received information about Jesus from Paul. We believe that Luke was influenced by Paul and they traveled together.

[2:29] So I think that first meeting between them was important. And I don't think it happened by accident. I think it was very much part of God's plan that Luke had a role to play as the gospel expanded out beyond Jerusalem, beyond Israel, and into the Gentile world, into the Mediterranean, and many other places. So one thing to remember, and this is a little different, and we'll talk about this, is that Luke is a gospel writer. But he is not a Christian. He is an apostle. And he wasn't one of the early disciples of Jesus. And that actually brings some challenges, as we will see later. There's some challenges about Luke because he wasn't actually one of the apostles. But as a gospel writer, he lays out his purpose in the very beginning. And as we read together, I want you to listen for the details that Luke includes and listen to the methodology that he uses when he writes what he's writing. So let's go to our reading now. It's Luke. Luke 1, verses 1-4. Verse 1.

[3:35] Pardon me. That was a throat clearing, not a cough. So you know. Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who were, who from the very first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.

[3:58] Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things that you have been taught. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray your blessing on this word as it's read, as it's preached, as it enters our lives. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

[4:31] Well, first off, and I want to go back a little bit, is to ask ourselves, who was Luke? Who was he? And as mentioned, he was not an early disciple of Jesus. He didn't live where Jesus lived. He wasn't from that part of the world. He never met Jesus in person. And he did not live in Israel or Palestine. He was from somewhere else. And this had actually been a problem for the early church, because they had this gospel. And they had to get the gospel from him, and it was a great gospel. But he was beginning to fail an important test that early church fathers, and they were all fathers at the time, early church leaders had for deciding how something went in or out of the scriptures, and that was known as apostolicity. In other words, was the writer an apostle? Was the writer somebody who had actually encountered Jesus themselves so that they could speak about it from a firsthand perspective? Amen. Amen. Luke fails at that test. Luke was not an apostle. He didn't meet Jesus directly.

[5:35] So the other three Gospels, they all do pass the test. I'll explain that. Matthew is probably the best example. We believe he was the same early disciple who left his tax collection table and started following Jesus. So his bona fides are just perfect. Matthew is great. Mark is interesting because we think Mark is actually the scribe for Peter. Peter was a fisherman. He didn't know how to write, or at least not well. So when you read Mark, you may be reading Peter. And Peter definitely is an apostle. And we think the chief of the apostles, the leader of them in a way. John identifies himself as one of the disciples, even going so far as to call himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. So the other three Gospels are on really solid ground in terms of authorship. But here we have Luke. There's other books in the New Testament that are straightforward in passing this test of what we call canonicity or apostolicity. Peter and James add some books to the end of the New Testament. John adds the Revelation at the very end of the Bible. The author of Hebrews is unknown. So it also faced some challenges. And that's an interesting story for another day, is who is the author of Hebrews. And why did Hebrews get in when it failed this important test?

[6:57] And that's a story for another day. Almost all the rest of the New Testament is Paul, who was also not an early apostle. But he did have a direct encounter with Jesus Christ, as we saw last week on the road to Damascus. So it was that with a very brief encounter. But we also believe that as he went away to Arabia for three years to understand who he was and understand who Jesus was, that it's possible that there he had further. There are other revelations from Jesus. And so Paul's apostolicity does stand the test. And so he is included in the New Testament.

[7:33] So then again, we're left with Luke. How does he get in? He came to faith much later. He didn't directly meet Jesus. How can we admit Luke's gospel if he never met Jesus in person? And the simplified answer, we could go into it more in detail, is that he was exposed to the teaching of Paul.

[7:54] And Paul himself had met Jesus. And then Luke set out, as we read, to make a very orderly investigation about all the claims of the gospels. And interview all the people who had met Jesus. And so you could say that in a way, Luke is a scribe for several people who met Jesus, in the same way that Mark is a scribe for Peter. And so that's actually a very good reasoning. And so that's actually a very good reasoning. The other is that Luke is just very orderly in what he does. We know that he's a physician, so he probably has studied. And so he has an organized mind and a good eye for discerning what the truth is. One great example, and this is just one, of the detail that Luke goes to, and the sources that he tracked down, kind of like a reporter who finds all the sources that they can, is the Christmas story in Luke. It's the most detailed of all the Christmas stories. It's one of the most detailed Christmas stories, really, of the birth of Jesus. Matthew is close. They're close.

[8:59] And it captures the emotions and the thinking of Mary as Jesus was about to be born. And so in this case, we believe that Luke found Mary. She lived past when Jesus was resurrected and raised again. She may not have been all that old when she had Jesus. And so she was still alive at the time Luke finally started collecting sources. And he talked to her directly and heard from her how the birth of Jesus unfolded. You remember that in Luke it says Mary pondered all these things in her heart. Now who would know to say that except for Mary herself? And so we have a very structured, a very organized gospel in Luke, and it definitely belongs in the Bible. And it should be said that Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. And that's an important book that really develops a whole lot for us. So between the Gospel of Luke and Acts, which Luke wrote both of them, Luke's writing accounts for 27% of the entire New Testament. And we would be much poorer without Luke as an author. So now we understand a little bit about how Luke, who Luke was, how he got his information, why we consider him a reliable person to write a gospel account. The next question we want to ask ourselves is, who was he in more detail in his background,

[10:35] and who did he write his gospel for? Now in terms of his early life, we don't know much. We know that he was by birth a Gentile, a non-Jewish person. But we believe that he was in a category of religious people that are known as God-fearers. And you can find this phrase, God-fearers, in the Acts of the Apostles. And it is a group of people that were fairly well understood, even at the time, as people who were attracted to the teachings of Judaism. And they were close to converting to Judaism in some ways. And so they saw the law, they saw God. It was monotheistic, as opposed to the polytheistic pagan religions that were all throughout the Mediterranean at the time. And so this was a group of people who were just gravitating towards Judaism. They hung out at the synagogue. They listened to what the rabbis were saying. They were close to God. They were God-fearers, or God-lovers, in a way you could say. And so we think that Luke was one of these people. He was, his heart had already been prepared to hear the gospel from God. From Paul.

[11:47] And so he was ready. And what we find is that for God-fearers, Christianity also became very attractive to them. It contained the teachings of Judaism. They valued the writings of the Old Testament completely, no doubt.

[12:08] But it also completed the teachings of Judaism. And here we should hearken back to the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus said, I have come to fulfill the law, not to tear it down. And so Christians, even early Christians, understood that Jesus was the natural thing that Judaism had been looking for, and they had found it in him. And the challenge in the early synagogue was, how many other people in the synagogue who hadn't met Jesus themselves, were going to also be persuaded that Jesus was the answer that they had been looking for. Some did. And some didn't. And that was the reality. And that is also what led to sort of the fissure, the schisms inside the synagogue movement. And finally, as we understand, by the end of the very first century, there was a very sort of official break, and Christians were generally excluded completely from synagogues.

[13:05] So, God-fearers may have actually been more, and this is, let's be honest, they may have been actually more inclined to join Christianity, because converting to Judaism turned out to be a very painful experience, especially if you were a man. You'll have to look that up and figure it out at home. But so Christianity was, but it was better for them as well. So God was already preparing Luke to receive the gospel.

[13:32] And Luke's audience, when Luke is writing, it's likely that he is writing to other people like him. So he's probably writing to other gods. He's writing to other God-fearing people. And other Gentiles, pagans who were polytheistic, people that he had grown up around, people that he knew very well. He dedicates his letter, you may have noticed that he actually, there is a recipient to this letter, somebody named Theophilus, and then the name means lover of God. And whether that an actual person, or that's actually sort of a blanket name of the God-fearers and all the God-lovers out there that Luke wanted to reach with his letter, we don't know. But it works either way. So the audience of Luke's letter were people that were one more step removed from the central apostles. We saw that the central apostles were trying to convert other Jewish people and some Gentiles, and they did. We saw that Paul was very much going first to the synagogue and trying to convert Jews, but also God-fearing Gentiles. And also other Gentiles, polytheistic Gentiles. And then Luke was, his aim was to convert other God-fearing Gentiles and other polytheistic pagan Gentiles. And so in each layer, almost like an onion, we see that the gospel is expanding to different cultures and new cultures,

[15:05] and God is appointing and finding people like Paul, and then like Luke, and then other people beyond them, to keep bridging the gospel. And so we see that the gospel is expanding to the next culture out, expanding away from Jerusalem as a center. And this is really exciting. It shows that God has a plan. It shows that God has a purpose. It shows that these people with these gifts can be used by God to do amazing things.

[15:32] So, one question we may ask is, why is it so important, and why does Hans-Erik seem to think Luke is so great? And I really do. It's true. I sometimes get asked, what's my favorite gospel? Not many people ask me that, but sometimes I'm asked, and it is Luke. It's Luke. It's just one of my favorites. It is my favorite gospel of all the gospels. You may have your own, and we all have. I don't know if that matches your personality, but Luke I love. Luke I love, and so I'm excited about it. But why is Luke so important? Well, aside from being responsible for so much of what we have, 27% of the New Testament, I think we need Luke now more than ever before. And here's why. And I want to kind of take one hat off and put another hat on. And this is just a commentary of what I'm seeing in the world right now, and why I think Luke is important to us. I have never seen Christians in our country, but also elsewhere in the world, look so bad as they look now. And I thought it couldn't get worse, but it keeps getting worse.

[16:45] All sorts of other religions look better than Christianity at this point. And I'm not saying that because I think Christianity is worse than religions. Honestly, I think it's better. Otherwise, I'm in the wrong profession. But the way Christians are coming off, and maybe people don't understand it at all, but the way it's coming off is a disaster. So in some cases, to other people at least, Christians come off as racist. They may come off as sexist. They sometimes don't seem to believe victims of sexual assault. They buy themselves private jets. That's been happening. Even in this time, people are buying private jets, so that they can fly all over the place and preach the gospel. I don't think you need a private jet to preach the gospel. We're doing it right here with a DSL modem. It's pretty easy. You don't need a jet to do it. That just costs about $50 a month. All right? And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, there are Christians who are publicly believing and acting on really foolish ideas. And we may not like that we can't gather right here, but it's for safety because we understand how diseases spread, and we understand that having a lot of people together in a crowded space is going to spread disease.

[18:04] And so there was a church in Korea that had all their people together, and they were all just saying, well, we can't get sick because God is with us. Well, really? Well, that's not what happened. They all got sick. There's a pastor of a megachurch in America who died of coronavirus. And he said, I'm going to just keep on meeting and keep on doing this right until the end. Well, you should have stayed home. You should have protected your people. And so Christians are coming off as people who don't either get science or understand science or believe that it's real. And then they're faced with this actual reality that they're getting sick, and they look foolish. It looks ridiculous.

[18:44] Sometimes we joke about the breatharians, you know, the people I talked about now the third time, the people who think that you can get your nutrition from the air. And last week I mentioned the breatharians, and last Sunday afternoon my nephew in Washington State, he sent me a text message saying that he was fairly convinced, and now he wants to become a breatharian disciple. And so I have finally gained one convert, but to the wrong religion. And I just don't know. I've got to hang it up. I've totally failed. It's time to go back to herding llamas in Ecuador. I don't know. Krista, just pack up the stuff and the kids. It's a great time to make an international trip right now, so we're just going to Ecuador. We're going to, because I converted someone to breatharian. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. My nephew was being funny.

[19:47] I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. and they call it some kind of holy water, and they call it a sacrament, actually, and that you can get some benefit from that. And there are Christians, this is my point, is they're bearing the name of Jesus while they do this, and they're saying this absurd stuff. And the rest of the world is looking at Christians and saying, I don't think I want to join that group, and this is what bothers me the most. I don't want to join that group of people who believe drinking bleach is good. And, of course, they're selling it, you know, making money off of it, too. And I guess if they sell enough, they can get their private jet. I don't know exactly what their calculus is.

[20:43] And I would just encourage people like that to just think this through. There are just a few steps, a few questions here. That's all they are, is questions. Like, what are the chemical components of bleach?

[20:56] Which is a household cleaner, as I understand, right? And you can put it in your laundry, too. And what happens when bleach comes into contact with human beings? Like, the tissue, like the inside of your stomach. I'm just asking, like I'm asking for a friend. I want to know. These are just questions. What will happen when you drink bleach? Good things or bad things? What do you think, right?

[21:19] What about when you tell people to drink bleach and they get really sick or some of them die? Are you a little bit responsible for that, at least somewhat? So this is my great concern, and this is why we lead. We need Luke right now. We need a little bit of Luke. Because aside from all this making Christians look bad, the scriptures tell us to be wise, to be intelligent. This is a commandment from Jesus. You can think these things through. You can study the world that God made. Science is not the enemy. It is actually uncovering the wonder of the world that God made and reveals his glory in ways that we can't. We cannot imagine. If you look through a microscope, the splendor of the universe is on display for you. And if you draw conclusions about what you see, you're being a good and faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. And that will lead you to all sorts of wise choices, like not spreading diseases and not drinking bleach and not eating air, you know. Just look at the mitochondria. I've mentioned this before. I'm a big fan of mitochondria. I'm a big fan of Luke and mitochondria. I love the mitochondria. It's the most amazing miracle. But there's a million more miracles just as amazing that God has made. And I think for those in the church who are scientists,

[22:49] they have had this wonderful life of exploring what God is like by looking through their microscopes, looking at these things. But you know what? That's not even the real issue. The real issue is that God is not the only one. The real issue is this.

[23:06] Is they're not doing what Paul does. This is what Paul says. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2. This is another important one to memorize. 1 Corinthians 2, 2. He writes this. For I resolved to know nothing, nothing, while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I'm going to read that again because I want that to sink in. I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul's message is only Jesus. He doesn't add himself to the equation. It's only the cross because that's what matters. And of course, the resurrection afterwards. So there's no Jesus and, right? There's no Jesus plus X, Y, or Z. And these X, Y, or Z, we're really good at adding them in, right? So there's no Jesus and bleach. There's no Jesus and. Political party. There's no Jesus and Amway. Somebody tried to recruit me in Amway and say, you can do Jesus and Amway at the same time. And I said, I cannot as a pastor do that. Because when people get a phone call from me, they need to know I'm calling because I care about their soul, not about their wallet. I can't do both. It's impossible.

[24:25] No Jesus and. Just Jesus only. When I came to be your pastor, the call committee asked me, what's your name? And I said, I'm going to preach about the cross. And I said, I'm going to preach about the cross. And I take this seriously. So I said, I'm going to preach about the cross. About the cross. That's all I have. I cannot add anything to it.

[24:48] And so the Christians who are out there that are giving the rest of the Christians a bad name, and they are, I encourage them to follow the advice of the Apostle Paul. For when I was with you, my purpose was to know nothing but Christ and him crucified and the resurrection, of course, which we're celebrating this season. So we need Luke right now and we need to be like Luke. We need to be thoughtful. We need to be thorough. We need to get to the truth of the matter. We need to show the world that we can think and understand how basic science works. You know, Satan dared Jesus to jump off a tower and have the angels catch him.

[25:34] And he redacted that. He says, you do not put the Lord your God to the test. We can't say to God, do this. And he does it because that would make us God. So I'm not going to jump off a cliff and say, catch me. I'm not going to handle snakes. I'm not going to gamble my life with disease and think that God will give me immunity. I'm not going to do those things. I'm not going to drink bleach. I'm not going to eat air.

[25:56] I'm going to keep preaching the gospel, the cross of Jesus and the resurrection that brings new life. That's all I've got. So finally, now we're at the end. I want us to be thinking that God is always finding new ways to reach the world with the gospel. Paul was a bridge to the Jews and the God-fearers and also to Gentiles. Luke is a bridge between God-fearers and pagan Gentiles. And the story of Luke for us is an invitation to bridge into our culture. Whatever culture. Whatever culture that you find yourself in. And it would be wrong to say that there's, for example, just one culture here in Silicon Valley. There are some dominant cultures, no doubt. It seems like the worship of wealth, the worship of technology. Some of those are cultural things, but not uniformly, not everywhere in this valley. We actually live in hundreds of overlapping cultures here where we are. And I know people are listening from Washington and Cleveland and other places. I'm glad you're here.

[27:02] Your job. At home now. And when you go back to work whenever that would be. And whenever you meet your neighbors. Is to be a credible, thoughtful person. To the people in your neighborhood and your workplace. To be about Jesus Christ crucified first and foremost. To let your light shine. To be generous and loving. And truly concerned about the people around you. You bridge into our culture. your culture just as Luke bridged in his and the expansion of the gospel will continue even in this valley and that's what we're called to do that's the example of Saint Luke let's pray Heavenly Father thank you for your word again thank you for all that you do for us help us to be like Luke help us to bridge into our culture with the gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ amen