Luke: The Gospel is Intellectually Credible & Existentially Satisfying (1:1-4)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

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So Saints, this is the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Luke.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Luke writes, 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.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

It seemed good to write an orderly account that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.

So let's pray.

But that they would turn to you, repent, and know your love and kindness and mercy and restoration.

So wherever it is we're coming from today, whatever it is that weighs on our heart, we pray that by your grace you would incline us towards yourself, Lord.

Teach us, give us understanding, incline our hearts, confirm your word to us your servants.

We pray this in Jesus' precious name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Before I dive in, I'm just going to give a quick advertisement here.

Um I do have a limited number of these uh prayer or uh Bible journals, Luke journals, available.

So if you are looking to take notes even as we go here, just be bold enough to help yourself here.

And uh we'll dive into our study here on Luke.

It was the end of April 1970, and the height of the protest movement against President Richard Nixon's expansion of the Vietnam War by invading Cambodia.

On May 4, 1970, National Guard soldiers opened fire against student protesters on the campus of Kent State University, killing four people.

Suspect some would remember this.

Students across U.S.

campuses, including at Bucknell College in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, responded by striking and refusing to attend classes.

Intervarsity Christian Fellowship students at Bucknell, no more than fifteen altogether, prayed and debated whether they should participate in the strike, which remained peaceful.

Classes had been canceled, and most Bucknell students were gathering in the open quadrangle every day.

An open mic invited diverse perspectives which favored more liberal and progressive views, and the university students weren't sure how to contribute to the conversation happening on campus.

Eventually one of the students made a sign.

White letters on a black background, and he posted it on the outskirts of the crowd.

For the next day or two, Tim and another student engaged anyone who approached the sign which read The resurrection of Jesus is intellectually credible and existentially satisfying.

They didn't get much of a response, mostly mocking and eye rolls.

But Tim remembered many substantial conversations with confused students too.

He observed that every person considering Christianity brought rational objections and questions, as well as personal ones, just that he himself had done before his own personal encounter with God.

Keller had grown up in something of a fundamentalist context that discouraged searching questions about the Christian faith in favor of a more anti-intellectual piety, which Keller found very shallow.

Studying religion at Bucknell meant Keller was exposed to all sorts of philosophical and theological ideas, most of which were quite critical of historic Christian doctrine and the Bible's reliability.

And Keller found this really unsatisfying.

Because why be a Christian or profess yourself to be a Christian if you really don't trust Christianity's primary source, the Bible, or you want to change the essential nature of what Christians believe?

Keller hunted for answers that would satisfy his searching intellect and offer his life real meaning and purpose.

And it was through reading Christian intellectuals like C.S.

Lewis and J.I.

Packer, through many hours of conversation with his introversity friends, who encouraged his search for truth that Keller finally put his heart's faith and trust in Christ alone for salvation.

The sign that he put up to encourage discussion in a diverse and anxious campus in May 1970 was the culmination of many years of carefully investigating his personal objections and searching for answers to his critical questions.

The sign was this the resurrection of Jesus is intellectually credible and existentially satisfying.

I wonder how you or I would respond to see a sign like that put up in the public square.

In a way, the introduction to Luke's gospel today does much the same thing as Keller's sign.

In a philosophically and pluralistically diverse context, like the first century Greco-Roman Empire, a little like Canada, this Gentile physician, this non-Jewish physician Luke, has spent years carefully investigating the person of Jesus and the remarkable claims made by his disciples about him.

This has led Luke to write a two-part work.

The first part we call the Gospel of Luke, which shares the good news of who Jesus is and what he's accomplished on our behalf.

And the second part we call Acts or the Acts of the Apostles, the book of Acts, which tells us the true story of Jesus' first followers, who are empowered by the Holy Spirit to spread the good news of Jesus to every corner of the world.

Here at the very beginning, Luke wants to make his conclusion clear to us, his readers.

The good news of Jesus, the good news of his life, his ministry culminating in his crucifixion and resurrection and ascension, all this good news is intellectually credible and existentially satisfying.

This good news must be taken seriously, says Luke, and it demands a response from each and every one of its readers.

Luke offers his text to anyone who searches for truth and for meaning.

Come and see who Jesus really is.

So with a new ministry year ahead of us at New Song, we're going to study Luke's two-part work together.

We're going to study his gospel this fall and the book of Acts in the spring, and it's my hope that as we look at Luke's gospel, we can come and see even more clearly who Jesus is.

Not a facsimile or a caricature, but the real deal.

And I hope this is true whether we consider ourselves committed disciples or baby Christians or perhaps even skeptics or folks harboring doubts about the whole Jesus thing.

If you are searching for truth and for purpose in your life, there's perhaps no better place to start than with Luke's bold claim.

So let's turn in our Bibles to Luke 1, 1 to 4.

If you've got your order of service, if you've better yet, if you've got your prayer journal or your Bible, open it up with me to these first four verses.

I'm going to go ahead and read them again.

Luke writes, inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.

So here's Luke's purpose in writing this narrative of Jesus' life, that its reader, Theophilus, can be certain that what he has previously been taught about Jesus is in fact true.

Yes, Theophilus, my investigation confirms that the good news of Jesus is intellectually credible.

Now, what would you say makes something intellectually credible?

Especially in an age of skepticism and alternate facts, so to speak, fake news, don't mean to use charge terms, but there you go.

What does it look like to be intellectually credible?

I suspect trust has to be a significant factor, doesn't it?

If I told you that I saw a deer on my way to church this morning, I suspect you'd have no reason to disbelieve me.

I didn't see a church, or pardon me, I did see a church.

I didn't see a deer on my way to church this morning.

But I'd be surprised if you pointed at me right away and said, that's a lie.

Probably I've earned at least that much trust.

But if I said that on my way to church this morning I saw a leprechaun, probably you'd be a little less likely to accept my claim.

And why is that?

Because one scenario is reasonable and the other isn't.

You can trust me, but you can only trust me so far, right?

One scenario can be backed up by evidence and the other cannot.

So perhaps we could say that we consider something intellectually credible when the source is reliable and when the claims are reasonable and backed up, verified by evidence.

So as Luke introduces his narrative about Jesus, he doesn't simply want us to take his word for it.

You know, keep your questions at the door, check your brain here.

Actually, it's quite the opposite.

He wants us, his readers, to weigh the evidence, to consider the eyewitness testimony, and consider the credibility of what he says for ourselves.

One world-class Luke and Acts scholar named Daryl Bach observes that there's several characteristics that mark Luke's approach to this task that gives Luke's claims credibility.

And here's three of them.

First, Luke investigated the story.

Bach writes that Luke was not himself an eyewitness to the events of Jesus' life, so only his study could produce such a work.

But we should not think of Luke in a library here.

He would have traveled through the community gathering information both from recorded texts and from conversations with others who had seen Jesus.

So what we're going to read in Luke's account here is not the result of fanciful speculation, but rather careful investigation.

Hours of interviews with those who personally knew and followed Jesus, hundreds of miles covered to check his sources, Luke takes his task as seriously as a modern-day investigative journalist.

Second, Luke's study was thorough.

He says that he has followed all things closely.

He studied everything.

Bach again writes that though we have seen we what though what we have in Luke is surely a select collection of material, the gospel writer wants us to know that he did his homework.

Luke was very concerned to get the story right, to be accurate in his portrayal of Jesus.

So Luke feels the responsibility of a storyteller, to offer a reliable report of what is said about Jesus rather than weave together an appealing but fictional narrative.

One scholar, N.

T.

Wright, reminds us of the reliability of such ancient storytellers.

He writes that storytellers wouldn't change the story or modify it.

If they did, people would notice and set them straight.

Let's bear in mind this is well before we wrote history down.

Stories and histories had to be transmitted orally, so they were taken very seriously in that transmission.

So when Luke went around, and he wright says, when he went around the villages of Palestine and Syria in the second half of the first century listening to the stories told by accredited storytellers, who he says are the ministers of the word, he would know that he was in touch with solid, reliable evidence that went back to the early events.

Luke was interested in a true narrative of Jesus, so he wasn't going to be selective in his sources.

Luke was thorough.

And finally, Luke did his work carefully.

Above all, Bach writes that the order of Luke's gospel seems to be redemptive historical.

Luke is concerned to trace the progress of God's redeeming work in Jesus.

This, he says, is sacred history revealing the order of God's plan.

Luke takes God's plan seriously.

So he invests himself in this research.

He wants his reader to know that his narrative is well researched, thorough, and carefully ordered.

This is not fanciful mythology or fluffy spirituality that Luke is presenting here.

The claims that Luke makes in his narrative are intellectually credible, factual, verifiable, and grounded in reality.

Still, we've heard tall tales before, haven't we?

Our modern minds still can't help but be skeptical.

Can we really trust what Luke has to say here?

Really?

Folks have made a lot of big religious claims in history.

What makes this one truer than any of the others?

And isn't Luke himself a Christian?

Surely his bias discredits him.

We can't trust an author who isn't a disinterested and objective observer, right?

I mean, assuming one of those exists.

But let's think about this objection for a second.

Is Luke's personal interest in Jesus a discrediting bias?

Or could it in fact give his project all the more legitimacy?

I would argue that we can trust Luke precisely because he wants us to know that he is not a disinterested and objective observer of this subject matter.

Luke is interested in the truth, and he's relentless in his pursuit of it, even at great personal sacrifice.

Here's what I mean by that.

We see this most clearly in the second part to this gospel, which we call Acts, and a handful of sections of Acts, towards the end, Luke slips into third-person narration.

Pardon me, he slips from third person narration, you know, they went, they did, and he slips into first person narration.

We went and we did.

Luke wants us to note his personal involvement in these sections in particular, and we should pay attention to what Luke is describing in these sections of Acts.

They describe how Luke, accompanying the Apostle Paul, traveled enormous distances at great personal risk to life and limb to proclaim the good news of Jesus.

Luke no doubt wrote his gospel text after these events occurred, but his careful investigation into the facts seems in his mind only to confirm the importance and the worth of his hardships.

In Luke's mind, the pursuit of truth has made all the sacrifices that he made worth it.

So if you start twisting my arm and ask me if I really saw a leprechaun this morning, I'm inclined to take back my tall tale pretty quickly, because I'm not willing to suffer for something that I know is untrue.

But if the source of a big claim is willing to suffer in their pursuit of truth, to lay their life down if that's what's required, then that's something I want to pay attention to.

Sane and studied people like Luke don't willingly risk their safety and security and put their lives on the line to pretend that a fairy tale is true.

This narrative is credible in no small part because Luke has carefully researched his questions and objections and has suffered for the sake of sharing his findings with others.

The church hasn't done a great job of inviting questions and objections, has it?

Whether they're intellectual questions like, is the Bible really reliable?

Or maybe personal questions.

Like, can I really trust a God?

Can I really trust that God is good if there's so much pain and suffering in the world?

Perhaps we ourselves know what it's like in a season of doubt or skepticism to talk with a pastor, talk with a Christian friend, brother or sister, and ask an honest question from a place of desperation, only to be met with something like this.

You should pray more.

Don't think about this so hard.

Feel it in your heart.

You know, faith harder.

None of that does our honest question any good, right?

At the beginning of this study, notice that Luke wants you to bring your questions, objections, and doubts about who Jesus is with you.

If Luke's narrative about Jesus is as intellectually credible as he claims it to be, then don't check your brain at the door.

The questions we ask might not have easy or quick answers, but since when do the really important questions in life have easy and quick answers?

Ask good questions as we study this here.

Relentlessly seek after the truth.

Because if the truth about Jesus isn't intellectually credible, like Luke claims it is, then frankly, Christianity is not worth believing.

Let's stop the charade.

Let's all go have brunch.

But if what Luke has to say about Jesus is true, then why wouldn't we want to know it for ourselves?

Let's investigate together.

I think if you're feeling especially courageous, I'd invite you to join us on Wednesday evening starting September 20 for our New Testament in its world study.

I think it's going to fill out a lot of dimensions of the New Testament, but I also think it's an opportunity to toss our question out there.

Here's what I've been wondering about.

I think you'd be surprised to know that most Christians have wondered about these questions as well.

Toss your question out there.

Seek after the truth.

Relentlessly pursue it.

Luke's done his homework about Jesus, and he thinks you and I should do ours as well.

So the good news of Jesus, Luke claims, is intellectually credible.

And because it's intellectually credible, we have grounds to say that the good news of Jesus is existentially satisfying.

Let's go back to verse one.

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us.

Dot dot dot.

The key word I want to point out here is accomplished.

Luke is writing a narrative of things, a history of Jesus, a history of these things that have been accomplished, fulfilled, carried out completely.

All of this signals that what Luke is about to tell us is a completion of something bigger, the grand finale of a great story that has been going on long before this one.

Luke has in mind here God's millennia-long relationship with his people, Israel, and the promise he's made to them to send into the world a Savior who will finally and completely rescue them from the greatest threat to their human existence.

And that's evil and death.

Luke understands that Jesus is the Messiah, the fulfillment of God's promise, God's appointed Savior, our rescuer, who in Jesus' own words, as recorded by Luke, came to seek and save the lost.

So, in other words, Luke wants us to know that the good news of Jesus is existentially satisfying.

Now, what in the world does it mean for something to be existentially satisfying?

What's existential has to do with life's meaning and purpose.

An existential crisis, for example, is when we feel like our life has lost its meaning.

We've lost our purpose and we're trying to cope.

You know, think Jimmy Stewart and It's a Wonderful Life or uh or or Barbie in the new Barbie movie.

Those are existential crises.

You'd be surprised.

For something to be existentially satisfying, then, it has to offer your life acceptable meaning and allow you to be content and fulfilled.

So through his death and resurrection, Luke would have us know that Jesus accomplished our rescue from evil and death.

He alone has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

In Christ alone can we find meaning to allow us to be fulfilled?

In Jesus alone do we have the grand finale to the whole story of the universe, which is to say, in Jesus alone can we be existentially satisfied.

Let's bear in mind that this gospel and its sequel acts are not written to a faceless audience, but to a person, Theophilus, who undoubtedly feels all the existential tension and all that all complicated human beings like ourselves feel.

Theophilus has hopes and fears, desires and doubts, and he relentlessly questions and searches for purpose and meaning in his life.

Probably Theophilus was a member of the educated Roman ruling class, who are commonly addressed as something like most excellent.

And he's got curiosity about Jesus that has led him to get some instruction from Christian teachers, but Theophilus' question is probably similar to one we've had at one point or another.

Maybe we even have this question right now.

Can this good news about Jesus really be true?

Because boy, it sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?

What does this meaning, pardon me, what meaning does Jesus have to offer my life?

Luke writes to Theophilus particularly, but with a general readership in mind, because what's existentially satisfying about Jesus is just as satisfying for Theophilus as it is for everyone else, ourselves included.

And that truth is this Jesus is our rescuer.

Through his cross and through his resurrection, out of his great love for you, God in Christ Jesus has overcome the two things that most threaten to render human life, your life, my life, meaningless.

Evil and death have been overcome by the cross and resurrection.

So in Jesus alone, your risen rescuer, will you find satisfaction?

In Jesus alone will you satisfy your relentless search for life's truth and meaning.

It was the preacher Oswald Chambers who wrote, The man or woman who does not know God demands an infinite satisfaction from another human being, which they cannot give.

It springs from this one thing.

The human heart must have satisfaction.

But there is only one being who can satisfy the last abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Don't let anyone tell you that satisfaction and contentment are illusions.

You can find your rest in the assurance that there is no existential threat to life that is not outmatched by the cross and resurrection of your rescuer.

Mine is peace that flows from heaven, and the strength in times of need, I know pain will not be wasted.

Christ completes his work in me.

So here in the first four verses of Luke, he's raised a sign in a diverse, pluralistic, and anxious public square.

And the sign is something like this The good news of Jesus is intellectually credible and existentially satisfying.

And his sign still stands today.

What do you think about it?

In his expository thoughts on the gospel, according to St.

Luke, the good Bishop J.C.

Ryle invites us, the readers of Luke's Gospel, to begin our study with an earnest desire to know more ourselves of the truth as it is in Jesus, and with a hearty determination to do what is in us to spread the knowledge of that truth throughout the world.

First, come and see the truth of Jesus for yourself, says Ryle.

And then go and tell the truth of Jesus to your neighbors, at your community, throughout the world.

Port Perry needs the good news of Jesus.

So it needs folks like you to bring your questions and your doubts and your curiosity with you as you come and see this Jesus for yourself.

It is good to have an orderly account that we may have certainty concerning the things that we have been taught.

Come and see.

The good news of Jesus is intellectually credible and existentially satisfying.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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May God bless you and keep you today and every day.