Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] This morning we're going to be just dwelling in the book of Luke, the first four chapters, the first three and a bit chapters of the book of Luke. There's a buzzword in education at the moment, two buzzwords in education at the moment. One is over learning and one is pre teaching. And overlearning is a bit what like Esther and Jo did with us a few moments ago. It's when you take something you've already taught, something you've already visited, and you revisit it to check that you've got it and to check that it's rooted in you. And pre teaching is when you're looking forward to something you're about to teach, something you're about to learn. And you give people some key ideas, some key concepts in order to help them navigate what they're going to be learning about in the future. And so this morning, as we begin our series on Luke over the last couple of weeks, I'd like us just to dwell for a little bit longer in Luke's chapters 1, 2, 3 and the first part of chapter 4 to go over some of those key themes that we've encountered in order to A, make sure we're rooted in it, but B, to prepare ourselves for the year to come, to prepare ourselves for what Luke has to tell us. So that's what we're going to be doing this morning. So there isn't a particular text that we're going to be focusing on. So if you have a Bible with you, you may want to flick through, through the books, chapters one, two and three, as we go through this together.
[00:01:28] First of all, Luke is a narrative. There are four things I want to say this morning. The first thing is that Luke is a narrative. It tells us in the beginning of chapter one that he is writing a careful account. He's going to be telling us the things that have been fulfilled amongst us. And we see if you go through the first couple of chapters, you will see things like him saying in 1 verse 5, When Herod was king of Judea, at the time Roman emperor was Augustus, in 3 verse 1, it was now the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius. The story of Jesus is located in a real place, in a real time, with a real cast of characters. It's a story. It's not sci fi, it's not fantasy, it's a real story.
[00:02:21] And I don't know about you, if you read books sometimes, depending on the kind of book you're reading, you might approach it slightly differently. If you have a poetry book or a short story collection, you may well dip into it from place to place. You might start at the beginning and then read one in the middle and then read one at the end. Does anyone do that?
[00:02:41] But if you had a detective story like a Whodunnit, you probably wouldn't go to the last page and read that and then go back into the book and find out who had been murdered and then go and dot around to find the clues. You wouldn't do that. You would read it, what I call from left to right. You would start at the beginning and work your way through to the end. The book of Luke is designed to be read from left to right. That was when Luke was writing it. He wanted people to read it from left to right. It's not primarily an anthology. It's not primarily a book that we dip into to find our favorite miracle or our favourite parable. It's a story that runs through the announcement of Jesus birth, through to his childhood, through to his early ministry, through to his journey to Jerusalem, through to his crucifixion, through to his resurrection, through to his ascension. And then Luke goes on in the Book of Acts and he also tells the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the early church. And you may not know this, but the Book of Acts ends in a bit of a. It doesn't really end. It doesn't have a final bit that says, and this is the book at the end of the Book of Acts. And that's because it's still being written. You and me are still living in the story of God in the Book of Acts. We are the church, we are the work of God. We are the continuing narrative, the people of God. And so we find ourselves within this clear flow of stories. One of the things I hadn't noticed until I started reading Luke again was these two, what some commentators have called bookends. In chapter two, Esther spoke to us a few weeks ago about the story of Jesus being lost in the temple. Do you remember that story, Liz? We talked about it at Life Group. Liz says, how did Mary feel getting after day one and a half of her journey? And she goes, I've lost the Son of God.
[00:04:30] How did they feel?
[00:04:32] And then they go back to the temple and they find Jesus and he reassures them and he says, don't worry, where else would I be? I'm in my Father's house. And he talks about who he is in relation to God. And then at the end of Luke, a spoiler coming up, there are two friends walking away from Jerusalem after the death of Jesus and they don't realize that he's been come back to life and they think they've lost Jesus.
[00:04:56] And Jesus comes to them and says, don't worry, I'm here. This is who I am. This is what it's all about. And Tom Wright says that you can bookend these two things in Luke, the Temple and the Emmaus road with a subtitle Finding the Jesus you thought you'd lost.
[00:05:14] Finding the Jesus you thought you'd lost. If you're looking for Jesus this morning, whether you've been walking with him for many, many years, or whether you've come in for the first time and you're just asking, who is this Jes. Jesus guy? You will find Jesus in the pages of Luke. And I'd really encourage you to be journeying with us as we do that this week. But just as we shouldn't just see Luke as a.
[00:05:37] As a. As a book in its own right, so as a mixture of little incidents, we should also see Luke within the wider story of scripture. Luke doesn't sit on its own as one book. It sits within 66 books books. And so the flow of scripture from creation to fall to rescue to restoration to renewal is also important. When we read the Book of Luke, that overarching narrative is really important. Joel Green says the overarching aim of Luke's narrative is determined by God's saving agenda, that is the outworking of God's purpose that reaches back to Abraham.
[00:06:20] So as we start this morning and as we begin going through the Book of Luke, I'd wholeheartedly we agree with what Esther was saying a moment ago. The first question we have to ask ourselves is how am I going to read the Book of Luke?
[00:06:34] Am I going to read the Book of Luke? Am I going to turn up on a Sunday and be pleasantly surprised by what topic it is that particular day? Or am I going to have a look at Live at 5, the newsletter beforehand and try and read the relevant chapter so I'm prepared in my heart and spirit before I come. Am I going to try and find some space within the weeks to come to read the Book of Luke from left to right, just to get the whole flow of it before we go into it, bit by bit as the week goes by.
[00:07:03] And Lord, would you show me my place in your story?
[00:07:08] I'm not an extra standby person just reading it. I want to be involved in your story. I want to be the continuation of the story of God in This place and in this town. So first of all, as we think about the book of Luke, we remember that it's a story, it's a continuing story that mirrors the overall story of God.
[00:07:34] And then secondly, these chapters, these first few chapters of Luke remind us, if nothing else, and if you don't take anything else away from this morning, it reminds us of the identity of Jesus. It's all about who Jesus is. One of the most important questions you can ask yourself and answer yourself is who is Jesus? In 2003 in Coventry, the Church of England did a wide ranging bit of research as to interfaith. And one of the questions they asked people was who do you consider Jesus to be? Be? And the answers were far ranging and they were illuminating. Some people said things like I don't think he existed, if I'm honest.
[00:08:15] One person said he was a very influential man. He was probably one of the most amazing people in history.
[00:08:21] And a third person said, I would say he's a teacher who had some insight into what we would call divine knowledge and tried to pass that on. If you're in school, if you're in a place of work, you may know Jesus. You may hear the word of Jesus as a swear word. You may hear people swearing on the name of Jesus, but they don't really know who he is or what he means. We will come across the name of Jesus in all sorts of contexts. The question for us this morning is who do we say that he is? Who do you say that he is? It's hard to escape the fact if you reread the first few chapters of the book of Luke, that the identity of Jesus plays an absolutely central role role. First of all, we see his humanity.
[00:09:05] Now I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but I don't know how many of you have dwelt for very long in the middle of chapter three of Luke, which is the genealogy.
[00:09:15] How many of you have really studied the genealogy? It's not the most exciting part of the Bible, we have to be honest. But what it does do is it roots Jesus family tree in humanity. It goes through people like Joseph, David, Ruth, Abraham, Noah, Adam, all these people that we may know of from the Bible story. Jesus is related to all of them on the human side of his family.
[00:09:42] My favorite one in the middle of all of that, I can't remember, I think it's verse 33 in the lesser known characters is there's somebody called admin.
[00:09:51] Did you know that? There's a guy, I assume it's a guy. I don't know who it is. There's a person in the Bible called admin.
[00:09:58] So I love that.
[00:10:01] Thank you, Lord, for admin. We love admin and we see Jesus relating to his parents. He chooses to obey his parents. We see him growing in body and wisdom. He grows as a human being, so he is there as a human. But secondly, we see his divinity. He is the Son of God. He is the Savior of the world. He is the light of the world. He is the one who brings you, me and the whole world rescue, restoration and renewal. So journey with me for a moment from left to right and I. Well, I don't apologize, but this will come quite quickly at you. So if you've got the Bible in front of you, you may see this. Even before his birth, his identity is proclaimed prophetically by Zechariah and Mary and announced by the angel Gabriel. In 1, chapter 32, he says, he will be the very Great. He will be called the Son of the Most High. The shepherds are told he is the Savior, yes, the Messiah. The Lord has been born today in Jerusalem in 2, verse 10. And then as Luke chapter 2 carries on, Anna sees Jesus in the temple and sees him in connection with God's rescue. And Simeon declares Jesus to be God's salvation and a light to reveal God to the nations.
[00:11:25] When Mary and Joseph find Jesus in the temple, he says, I was in my Father's house, My Father's house. His close and personal relationship to God. And when he has his baptism facilitated by John, people come up to John the Baptist and say, are you the Messiah? And he goes, no, no, I'm not the Messiah, but someone is coming who is greater than I am. And then, just to underline the point, he references Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah, and says, all people will see the salvation sent from God. And then Jesus gets baptized. And in the middle of this, God himself says, you are my dearly beloved Son. And as Dave was speaking last week, even the devil does not dispute who God is, who Jesus is. He says, since you are the Son of God in the beginning of the Temptations in the Wilderness at the beginning of chapter four. So of all the characters that we've met so far, not one of them has disputed the identity of God or the identity of Jesus as the Son of God. It's the most fundamental question that we can ask ourselves.
[00:12:35] We begin to read the ministry of Jesus as we start next week going into his public ministry. Let's not go into it under any illusions as to who Jesus is He is the Son of God. He is born as a human. He is loved by God and by his parents and he will bring salvation and light to the world. He will bring salvation and wholeness to your life and to my life as we have a relationship with him. I don't know if anyone's watched the series Outnumbered. Does anyone know this? Children? Outnumbered makes me laugh. The Outnumbered series and at the very beginning, in one of the early episodes, there's a five year old little girl called Karen and she's talking to her slightly bemused and befuddled father and she says, in one of the episodes she says to him, dad, who is God?
[00:13:23] And the dad gets a bit flustered and he goes, well, you know, some people say this and some people say that, and researchers prove this and the other. And Karen looks at him, this five year old, she goes, no, Daddy, I don't want to know what other people think. I want to know, what do you think? It's a great line. Jesus asked a similar question to his friends. He says, who do you say that I am?
[00:13:48] We need to be clear in our own minds as we start. Luke, who is Jesus? Who do I say that Jesus is? And temptation that we see in chapter four. Temptation strikes at the heart of identity. Just pause on that for a moment. Just think about that for a minute. Temptation targets my identity and Jesus identity. The wilderness was a pivotal moment for Jesus in chapter four. Would he take this identity as the Son of God? Would he take his power and would he use it to serve his own purpose? Or would he stay true to the wishes of his heavenly Father? Would he be a loyal subject of the kingdom of God or would he defect to the kingdom of the world?
[00:14:37] Many years previously, if you following the narrative of the Bible, many years previously, the children of God, the people of God, Israel, had been in the wilderness for 40 years. They had faced the choice, the same choice. Do we do things God's way or do we do things our way? They chose to do it their way and it didn't end well.
[00:14:57] Before that, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden had a similar choice. Do we do things God's way or do we do things our way? Similar choice and didn't end well for them either.
[00:15:09] So the choice is, do I find my identity in Christ and what temptations are coming my way to try and assault that identity? And I'm sure there'll be people here this morning for whom temptation to be less than God intends us to be is real in whatever areas of life. That it is. Temptation does that. It takes something and it offers the promise of making us greater. But actually the impact is it makes us lesser than what God intends us to be. I'm not sure if that makes sense. It seems a bit convoluted to me. Let me give you a story.
[00:15:48] I hope you won't think too badly of me when I tell you this story. Do you promise not. Promise not to do that. Promise not. Thank you. Not to do that. Always edit it out from the tape if necessary. When I was teaching many years ago, I was in front of a year 10 class, I think it was so about 14, 15 year olds. And I was up at the front, I was teaching away, and all of a sudden this joke came into my head and I thought, oh, if I tell that joke, the class will really love me.
[00:16:19] That will make me look cool, it will be trendy, wouldn't be fantastic. They'll really like this joke. And so it wasn't really connected with anything that we were doing in my French lesson. And I told this joke and it went absolutely quiet.
[00:16:37] Not a stop, not a remote snigger, not a guffaw, nothing. They just looked at me. Now, before you, wondering what this joke was. I'm not going to tell you. What, I can't remember what this joke was. God has graciously erased it from my memory.
[00:16:52] And it wasn't the kind of joke that's going to get you sacked if you found it on WhatsApp or anything like that.
[00:16:58] But at that moment I knew that it was the wrong kind of joke to say. There was something about it that was wrong. It. It just wasn't right. And I just had this sense in me. I'd wanted to look cool, I'd wanted to look good. And I'd actually ended up looking a bit foolish. And what made it worse was that one of the children then said, oh, sir, you don't normally talk like that.
[00:17:22] Yeah, you're right. And it was a real lesson. I'd wanted to look good, but I'd ended up looking less. Temptation strikes at our identity. Who are you in Christ? We need to be secure. I am a child of God. I am forgiven and restored by the blood of Jesus on the cross. And I have got an eternity ahead of me in relationship with him, with my heavenly Father, and nothing and no one can get in the way of that. But temptation will say, really?
[00:17:53] Is that really what you think? Is that really what God says?
[00:17:58] Can I just invite us to close our eyes just for a moment before we move On. I haven't finished, sorry. Just get your hopes up if you think I've finished.
[00:18:07] But let's just pause for a minute. You may want to close your eyes, you may not. That's entirely up to you.
[00:18:13] But just in your heart and in your mind, just pose that question, who is Jesus to you? And there's no expectation on you this morning. You may have come here and the question on your mind is, I haven't got a clue who Jesus is.
[00:18:31] You may have been following Jesus for many years, but what words come to mind when you think about the identity of Jesus, Son of God, light of the world, the way, the truth, the life, the good shepherd, the true and righteous one, light of the world.
[00:18:54] And if, as we have our eyes closed, you're someone who doesn't know who Jesus is, or you haven't said to him, yes, you are my Lord, you are my king, then can I ask you, what are you going to do about that?
[00:19:12] Who are you going to talk to?
[00:19:15] How are you going to find out who Jesus really is?
[00:19:22] Thank you, Lord.
[00:19:24] Amen.
[00:19:28] So it's a narrative.
[00:19:30] It's a story. We read it from left to right. We see the characters, all of them, declaring who Jesus is and recognizing who Jesus is. But then thirdly, the characters and the story encourages us to use scripture correctly, to read scripture and to understand and apply scripture or the Bible correctly.
[00:19:54] Have you noticed that the characters we've talked about all reference scripture? They all know what for them, for what is us. The Old Testament for them would have been their scriptures. They know what they say and they use them to help them make sense of the bewildering and remarkable things that are playing out in front of them.
[00:20:17] They don't look at Jesus and go, well, that's a surprise. Where did he come from? They go back to their scriptures and say, it's been promised. Jesus has been promised.
[00:20:28] We remember that Luke says he wants to make an account of things that have been fulfilled among us. And so that links to narrative. It links to Jesus identity. So let me give you a few examples. When Zechariah is told by Gabriel in chapter two that John would be a man of spirit and the power of Elijah, that is a fulfillment of the Prophet Malachi, chapter 3, verse 1. In Malachi 3:1, it says, Look, I am sending my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. John the Baptist was foretold. John the Baptist was not a surprise. In the grand story of Jesus, Luke is careful to let us know that Jesus comes from the line of David that God had promised the Messiah would be from that lineage.
[00:21:17] When Mary sings her song of praise in chapter two, she uses verses from Psalms and she goes back to Genesis chapter 17 and says, for he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever. She knows the biblical story, and she sees it being played out in front of her. Zechariah, when he gets his voice back, says, just God sent a savior, just as he promised through his holy prophets. Long ago, Simeon and Anna would have been steeped in the prophecies that foretold the arrival of the Messiah.
[00:21:54] So time and time again, we see the people in the story using scripture, applying scripture, understanding scripture correctly. But did you notice when Dave was speaking to us last week in the Temptations, the devil also uses scripture.
[00:22:11] In Luke 4, 10, 11, he quotes from Psalm 91 and suggests that if Jesus just throws himself off the temple, God will have to rescue him through his angels. And that is a quote from Psalm 91, but that's not what it meant in Psalm 91. It wasn't designed to say, I can force God's hand. So the devil is taking scriptures, taking an isolated verse and saying, I'm going to twist that. And we have to be careful. It's not enough for us to have our Bible verse of the day and say, well, that's a nice verse. Unless we're thinking about, how does that feel within Scripture. Am I applying this verse correctly? Am I thinking about it?
[00:22:53] I had a conversation today with one of our younger members who is doing exactly that. They are thinking about the Bible. And they had a question and they came up and they said, what does this mean? What a fantastic thing to happen. What a fantastic thing to be doing, to be thinking about what Scripture means. Temptations teach us that it's not enough to know scripture. We have to be wise. Our application. When the devil met with Adam and Eve or with Eve, he said, did God really say. Did God really say that? He was tempting us to question Scripture? So we have to be careful to not take isolated stories or verses out of context. Let me give you a silly example. This is with no judgment at all. This just makes me laugh. When Liz and I were younger, we used to take our children to spring harvest. You know, spring harvest, things like that. And we used to take our children and we used to, when they were very little, we would drop them off at the nursery with all the bottles and the nappy bag and all of those things. We would go to our session and then we would come back a couple of hours later to pick them up. And we did that for a week. And at the end of the week, our children were given a certificate for being in the nursery. And on the certificate it said, well done, Alan. You have done a week at Spring Harvest Baby Springers, or whatever it was called. And then it had a quote from 1 Corinthians 15, verse 51, which says, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed.
[00:24:20] Now, I thought that was really funny, but I don't think. I don't think the apostle Paul was thinking about nappies when he wrote, we should all sleep, but we shall all be changed. We have to be careful about how we use Scripture. And it's important that we have people, not just books, that we have people that we can talk to about Scripture. That's why things like life groups are really important. Meeting up with people to talk about Scripture, what does this mean? How do we apply this to our lives? How do we encourage one another with and through scripture? Things like the Winter Bible School Shameless plug. One more next week as we're going through the Psalms, it's an opportunity not just to listen to somebody, but to talk with somebody. Somebody.
[00:25:06] So let's be alert to how we think about scripture, how we talk about scripture, who we discuss scripture with, and how we apply it. As we go through this series on Luke, and then finally Luke offers responses to Jesus. This is so important. As we go through Luke chapters one, two, and three, there are two basic kinds of responses to Jesus. Jesus. First of all, there is what we would call opposition.
[00:25:37] There is no escaping the fact that Luke sees there's a cosmic battle going on between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Satan is implacably opposed to everything that Jesus wants to do, everything that Jesus stands for. And he will marshal his forces to try and bring that down. Mary and Zechariah allude to this battle in what they sing, Mary sings, he has brought down princes from their thrones. And Zechariah prophesies, now we will be saved from our enemies and from all who hate us. When Simeon takes the baby Jesus in the temple and recognizes him as the Messiah, he says, this is a sign from God. He has sent a sign from God, but many will oppose him.
[00:26:25] John the Baptist may be not out to win friends and influence people. When he talks to people and says, you are a brood of snakes, don't think that would go down terribly well. I think we need to be a bit more winsome when we're trying to talk to people about Jesus. But nonetheless, he then criticizes Herod for his lifestyle choices and ends up in prison.
[00:26:45] And after tempting Jesus, Luke tells us that Satan departed until the next opportunity came. And we know that in Luke 22, he causes Jesus to betray Jesus. There is a real battle going on. And even though we know that the ultimate fate of the devil is destruction, we know that everything that is wrong will be put right one day. It doesn't mean that in the here and now we don't experience trials and challenges and difficulties. The further Jesus went into his ministry, the more vociferous and challenging the opposition became. Some of you may be facing opposition today in your war with Jesus. You may have that sense that something's trying to stop you and keep you from Jesus.
[00:27:25] That's real. And we're here to pray with you and stand with you. We have to stand with our sisters and brothers in faith. We ask the Holy Spirit to protect, empower, and equip us.
[00:27:37] But also, and I'll finish with this also.
[00:27:43] There is so much praise.
[00:27:46] There is so much praise. I want to encourage you just for a moment and before Matt and the team come back and lead us, I'm wondering, Matt, if we could sing the Praise the Lord chorus again. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Because that is at the heart of the verses in Luke. And when you were thinking about Jesus, what words came to mind? And I'm not a musician and something like this makes me feel really scared.
[00:28:12] But I'm just wondering, as we sing and as Matt leads us in a little while, you may want to, rather than singing Praise the Lord, O my soul, you may just choose to sing out what Jesus means to you. And I know that sounds scary and you don't have to do that.
[00:28:28] Sing Praise the Lord, O my soul. But as we were worshipping earlier, I found myself thinking, well, actually, the words, you are the way, the truth, the life that will scan. Okay, you are the shepherd. And as Matt leads us, maybe Matt just have maybe a space of freedom to declare our own praise as to who Jesus is. But let's go one last time from left to right.
[00:28:53] Elizabeth, on discovering she's pregnant, declares how kind the Lord is. Mary, while initially confused and disturbed, comes to a place of obedience and praise. Un oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. Zechariah starts his prophecy with Praise the Lord, the God of Israel. The shepherds go back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had seen and heard. Simeon praised God on holding Jesus and Anna saw them talking and also began praising God. When Jesus was in the temple. We are told that the religious lead teachers were amazed at his understanding as Jesus grew. He has a favourable response from God and the people. God himself declares his joy over Jesus at Jesus baptism and when Jesus returns from the wilderness. And as we prepare to step out into his public ministry next week. The first thing Luke tells us is reports about him spread quickly through the whole region.
[00:29:55] He talked regularly in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
[00:30:01] Can I encourage us to have hearts of praise when we see what Jesus is doing in our lives and in the lives of those we love, in the lives of our community, in the lives of our nation, in our world, can we be quick to praise the Lord? O my soul, could I invite you, if you'd like to, to.
[00:30:26] I'm just going to pray.
[00:30:29] And if any of the things I say apply to you in your heart, you may just want to say Amen.
[00:30:36] And then Matt will lead us. As we praise the Lord, we will declare the name of Jesus, the way, the truth and the life.
[00:30:47] So, Father God, I pray for each one of us as we are part of your story. Story as we look at the world. As we look at the world story from left to right, we see you at work and right at the centre of it, we see Jesus.
[00:31:03] We see the Son of God, the one who came and brings life and light.
[00:31:12] Lord God. If there's anyone here who does not know Jesus, I pray they will discover. Discover him.
[00:31:19] Who is Jesus for you this morning?
[00:31:22] Are you facing temptation? Are you facing something that is challenging your identity as a child of God? Bring that to the Lord this morning. I break that in the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit. Would you be set free from that?
[00:31:39] And may you know and walk in joy in the identity as a daughter, as a son of the King.
[00:31:48] Are you facing opposition this morning because of something that God is trying to do in your life?
[00:31:55] I stand against that. In the name of Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we stand with you.
[00:32:06] And most of all, Father, would you give us hearts to praise you, hearts to declare who you are?
[00:32:15] Just allow in these final few moments, just allow who is Jesus to you?
[00:32:23] Finish that sentence in your mind. Jesus you are.
[00:32:28] And then maybe as Matt leads us, as we praise the Lord, sing that out, even if you've never done that before, maybe just under your breath when no one else can hear you. But he will.
[00:32:43] He will know.
[00:32:50] So we praise you, Jesus.
