So That You Might Be Certain

Luke 1:1-4 - Riley Boggs

One of the favorite books I read during my time in college was a book called “The Fabric of Theology” by Richard Lints. It was one of my favorites and one of the most formative for a number of reasons. One of them is this idea of having a fabric of theology. In the book he is arguing that evangelicals have a theology that is often too fragmented, like a patchwork quilt. We have our doctrine of God here, our evangelist theology here, our church theology here, and so on. They all touch at different points, but for the most part they are distinct parts of this larger quilt.

Instead of this, he says that our theology should be like a fabric that weaves all together. Our doctrine of God, how we do church, how we live, and so on should all inform one another in such a significant way, that it isn’t as easily broken up. Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t break things up when we are studying things. But what it does mean is that we can’t try to so neatly sort everything away in its own little box afterwards.

The reason I say this is because I want to guard us against the temptation to do this as we begin our study through Luke. This account of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ ought to impact every single nearly aspect of your life. Your theology of God, the church, and evangelism. It should impact your marriages, your parenting, and your relationships with friends and family. It should impact your priorities, your desires, and how you go about your day-to-day life. This book can’t be sorted away into its own little category in your life, it will have implications on your life. And this won’t happen at once, but slowly, week-by-week, it will take place. 

So as we begin this journey, my hope and prayer is that you would come to church each Sunday morning with the expectation that the Word of God is going to impact your life. Not in this big dramatic way each Sunday, though that could happen, but little by little each week. And then, at the end of this journey, I think we will all find ourselves to be more like Christ, more encouraged to press on in the faith, and see that God has been glorified throughout the whole journey.

Now with all of that being said, this morning we are going to only look at the first 4 verses. The reason for this is that I want to spend the first 80% of our time almost in preparation for this book. Think of this morning like the time right in the car right before you leave your house for a road trip. You get in the car, run through a mental list of all the things you needed to do before you left, make sure you have everything you need for the trip, pull up your directions, buckle your seat belt, and then take off. That’s kind of what we are going to be doing, preparing ourselves for our time in Luke.

The thing is, you don’t prepare to walk through the book of Luke the same way that you prepare for a road-trip. You don’t make sure you have enough car snacks to make it to the first gas station or ensure that someone is going to take care of your dog while you’re gone. So what do you do to prepare for reading this ? I think you ask 4 basic questions. Who, what, how, and why. For this book in particular it’s, who is Luke, what is he doing, how is doing it, and why is he doing it? That will be our sermon layout this morning, a bit more structured that normal, but I think it’ll prove helpful for us. But more importantly than it simply being helpful, I think that is what the Luke wants us to see in these first 4 verses. So let me give you a brief explanation of the Gospel of Luke and then we’ll spend the rest of our time this morning answering these questions.

The Gospel of Luke is 1 of the 4 accounts of Jesus’ birth, life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. Each of these Gospels were written by different people, but each writer was inspired by the Holy Spirit record every word intended and not a single word more. However, just because they were inspired by the same Spirit, does not mean that these Gospels don’t vary in approach. Each Gospel writer takes on their writing task a bit differently. They reflect the characteristics of the writer, the way that they gathered the information they are writing about, their purpose in writing, and so on. They don’t contradict one another, rather they all come together to give us this beautiful picture of who Jesus is from different angles and approaches. Only God Himself could bring about a thing as beautiful as the 4 Gospels we have today. 

But we aren’t here to study all 4 Gospels, at least not this morning, we are here to study the Gospel according to Luke. So let’s start by asking our first question this morning.

1.) Who is Luke?

a.) Author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts

The first part of this might be pretty obvious considering this is called the Gospel according to Luke. The second part, which is likely less known, is that Luke is also the author of the book of Acts. Really, Luke and Acts as a function almost like a 2 part series. The Gospel is the account of Jesus’ life and then Acts is the account of what happens after he ascends in the early church. 

b.) A Physician

If you will, turn with me briefly to Colossians 4, so I can show you how we know this about Luke, because he doesn’t tell us himself in this Gospel. Look with me starting in verse 12. Paul is giving his final greetings, and this is what he says, “12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. 13 For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. 14 Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas.”

So we see clearly here that Luke is called a physician. You may be thinking, “Okay, what does that matter? We’re going to be reading his account of Jesus, not going to him for an annual check-up.” Well in one sense, that’s right. Luke being a physician doesn’t change anything about the Gospel we are going to read. However, I do think it’s worth noting simply because of the way that Luke goes about describing and telling things at times. And his attention to detail is no doubt in part due to his training as a physician. Just something to keep in mind as we work our way through this book.

c.) Friend of Paul

This point can be also be seen in the passage that we just looked at, where Paul writes that Luke sends his greeting. But another place this can be seen is several times throughout the books of Acts, where Luke doesn’t say, “Paul went on this missionary journey and did this and that”, but instead Luke says, “We went on this missionary journey and did this and that.” Luke was the Apostle Paul’s friend, his travel companion, and his ministry partner.

Now there are several reasons why that is significant. First of all, Luke has Paul’s theology through and through. In this Gospel, it is clear that Luke has been taught by Paul concerning things like the sovereignty of God. Luke will take a high view of God’s sovereignty, showing that He is in control of every single aspect of salvation, not excluding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Luke also has Pauline theology concerning prayer. In his Gospel, he records more of Jesus’ prayers and more of Jesus’ teachings on prayer than any other Gospel. Again, just something to keep in mind as we go along. Now this last one, I think, is the most significant one for us.

d.) Not an eyewitness

Luke was not an eyewitness to the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus himself. He was not there. He isn’t like, for example, Matthew. Matthew was a disciple of Jesus, and his Gospel is written with his own eyewitness account. But Luke wasn’t there himself. And, if he wasn’t there, how is he writing all of this? Hopefully we can answer that question as we look at our our 2nd and 3rd points this morning. So let’s move on to our 2nd question.

2.) What is he doing?

a.) Writing an account of what has happened

Luke’s purpose in writing this Gospel, primarily, is to write down what has happened. Alistair Begg makes the point that for us to write something down isn’t anything special. We write things down all the time. Grocery lists, our to-do list, sermon notes, and so on. But in this time and place, people were not writing things down. This is a verbal culture, where people didn’t write things down, they simply remembered. 

Well the same is true concerning the Jesus’ life. It’s not as if there were a wealth of books about what Jesus had said and done floating around. But there were stories, lots of stories. And so Luke decides, prompted by the Spirit, to write an account of all these things. To record what he says in verse 1 has been accomplished. That word accomplished in the Greek brings the idea of fulfillment behind it. Luke is writing about the things that have been fulfilled by Jesus. 

It seems clear that he’s thinking about the Old Testament promises here as well, because he then mentions that he is going to record these things about Jesus’ life, but he isn’t the first person to take on the task of recording such things. All the way from the beginning God had been prompting and empowering people to record these things so that today we might have the very word of God in our hands.

The next thing I want you to see is the way he is gathering his information.

b.) Using eyewitnesses and other sources

Just a moment ago I pointed out that Luke wasn’t an eyewitness to Jesus himself, and I mentioned that this begs the question, where is Luke getting his information? If he wasn’t there and he didn’t see, how is he determining what he should or shouldn’t write.

The way that Luke is doing this is that he is going to those who were eyewitnesses to these things and asking them. He would go to them and say, “So you were there when Jesus healed the man? Tell me what happened?” And he would go on and on, listen to the stories, and record these things. Now you may be thinking, “But what if someone made up something that wasn’t true?” That’s a fair question and so I want to answer it partly here and partly under our 3rd point.

For now, I think it’ll help to know that Luke was not only using eyewitnesses. There were written records already in existence to some extent. Maybe records of this story or that story, that he could go and check everything. Many people also believe that Luke had access to the Gospel of Mark. And so he would hear something from an eyewitness, look in Mark’s Gospel, ask another person, and so on. We’ll talk more about this in just a moment, but I want to make one final point about what Luke is doing here before we move on.

c.) Writing to Theophilus

Luke makes in clear in verse 3 that he is writing to “most excellent Theophilus”. Based off that greeting, we can assume that this is a high-ranking Roman officer. Typically, when someone writes to someone else, we call it a letter, and yet we don’t call this a letter. Why is that? Well based off the structure of how this book is written, Luke clearly intends for this writing to be circulated throughout. It isn’t just for Theophilus.

Think of it like this. Right now we’re playing church softball, and Parker and Anne are on that team. Let’s say Parker gets up to bat, he looks over at Anne, he says “This one’s for you”, and then he hits a homerun. In one sense, yes that was for Anne, it was dedicated to her. But in another sense, it was for all of us. It’s a silly example, but hopefully that helps you make sense of what Luke is doing here.

The other thing I want you to see here is in verse 4. Luke says that he’s writing these things so that, “you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” I want to draw your attention specifically to the word “taught” here. This is the same word where we get the word “catechize”. In other words, Theophilus has gone through the basics of the Christian faith. He’s been catechized, he’s been taught. And now, Luke intends for this Gospel, and the book of Acts which he also dedicates to him, to supplement all that he has already learned. I want you to keep that in mind when we get to our final point, looking at why Luke is writing this Gospel, but for now, let’s move on to the third point.

3.) How is he doing it?

This question is an important one to consider because the manner in which someone does something matters. If someone is building you a house and you notice that they never measure things, never use a level, and often ignore things they need to fix, you are going to have hesitations about the house that you move in to. On the other hand, if the builder double checks his work, make sure everything is plum and square, and goes the extra distance to make sure something is quality, you are going to have more trust in the house. The same is true for accounts of things that have happened. And Luke tells us here in this introduction the way that he is going about this process, so that we might trust it all the more. Look at the two ways he says he is doing this. 

a.) Closely

Luke says, in verse 3, that he has been following things closely. That is, he has been listening to stories, cross-checking them over and over again, making sure the witness is credible, checking other reports, and so on. He isn’t being fast and loose with what to include. He’s being careful, he’s watchful.

What this means is that the man who comes up and says, “are you the one writing the account about Jesus?” And Luke says, “Yeah, that’s me.” Then the person says, “Oh good, I was hoping to find you. I wanted to let you know that when Jesus was born, he had a twin brother. I was there and I saw Mary give birth to 2 baby boys that night.” At this point, Luke doesn’t say, “Now that’s helpful information” and begin writing this down. Rather Luke has been keeping up with the records and accounts, he knows who was and wasn’t there that night, and he is making sure that he is getting it right. Like the physician he is, he is going to be careful and mindful, and make sure that he has it right.

b.) Orderly

We can see this point made in verse 4. Luke says that he is going to write not just an account, but an orderly one. That is, he isn’t going to fill the pages with true stories all jumbled together. Instead, he wants to put them all in order, in such a way, that the person and work of Christ is clear and obvious. There are not distractions because of the form, only the beautiful account of Jesus shines through. And not only that, but because it is orderly, it’s credibility will be unquestioned.

Okay, now on to the last question. I feel like I’ve given you a lot of information, maybe have done a lot of teaching, not as much preaching. But now I want to show you why this matters so much, both now and as we work through the rest of this book.

4.) Why is he doing it?

Again, an important question. Why is he doing this? What is his purpose for writing this account? He tells us exactly why in verse 4.

a.) So that we might have certainty

For some reason, I’m not sure why, we don’t like this word when it comes to the Bible. Alistair Begg made this same point commenting on this text. He talks about how when it comes to things like science, we say that we are 100%. It’s verifiable, I am certain. But then, with the Bible, we get nervous about this word. Are we certain that everything that is recorded in Luke’s Gospel is true? And someone responds, “I mean, I wouldn’t say I’m certain, but I think so. I wasn’t there so it’s hard for me to say.” And then back to the science someone asks, “Are you certain that Pluto exist?”. They say, “Well of course, people have seen it. I’ve learned about it, I’m certain it exists.” Do you see what is happening? I’m not altogether sure why we do this, but I think it has a lot to do with living in a materialist, enlightened, time where science is fact and everything else is left to be questioned. But regardless of the reason, I want you to push back against that. 

Can we really be certain about the Word of God being true? Yes. We can be absolutely certain, no reservations. I want you see that Luke wrote for this very purpose. He wrote in the way that he did for a reason. And no, he didn’t have you all, the Christians gathering at 2649 New Salem Rd, in mind when he wrote these things. But do you know who did? The God who guided his hand to write the words that he wrote. He brought eyewitnesses and reports to Luke, had him write the words he wrote, so that you might be certain about the things in this book. So that you might be certain about the person and work of Jesus Christ, and like Theophilus, have all the things you have been taught further confirmed.

So here is my encouragement, or charge, for each of you. As we begin to work through the gospel of Luke, I want you to immerse yourself in the Word. Read ahead before each Sunday and come a bit prepared. Pray that the Lord might give you insight and application each week. Try to memorize sections of it and ask that the Lord would write it on your heart, not just your mind. Go to small group where you’ll discuss how to apply the text to your day-to-day life. Do all of this and there is no doubt in my mind that when we get to the end of this book, you will have grown tremendously. Like I mentioned at the beginning, it might not happen in this big dramatic moment, but over time you will grow in knowledge, faith, and in the likeness of Christ. That’s my hope and my prayer for us as we start this journey through the book of Luke. I’m excited for it, and I hope you are too.