Luke 1:1-38

Know the certainty of what you’ve been taught

Well on the screen, you can see a picture of the famous baobab tree. Probably

the most famous tree in Africa. One of the largest trees in the world. The trunk

of a full-grown baobab can fit 40 people inside.

Also one of the oldest trees in the world. According to Kruger national park

website, it can live up to 3000 years.

But a couple of years ago there was a mystery disease thought to be a fungus

that wiped out a large number of these ancient trees in Zimbabwe. And the

trees would slowly turn black. Then the leaves would fall off. And then the tree

would die.

And this is something common around the world. Even the largest and

strongest trees can succumb to an unseen fungus. And the effects of this

fungus might not be seen for many years. But gradually it grows. And it rots

the roots. And eventually it kills the tree.

And that’s a picture ofwhat doubt can do in the Christian life. Just like a fungus,

doubts can enter our minds. And if its not dealt with, it can grow and affect our

roots and eventually cause us to fall.

And there numerous ways in which doubts can be sown.

It could be the influence of a famous philosopher like Bertrand Russel who

wrote the book: why im not a Christian. And he throws out the following

statement: “Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all,

and if he did we do not know anything about him”

Or it could be the hypocrisy of my high school English teacher who claimed to

be a Christian, but declared to the whole class that the Bible is full of

contradictions.

Or it could be an experience like the one I had during my sabbatical. Where my

hair was cut by a Muslim man from Palestine. And he’d grown up in a

completely muslim community and muslim culture. And it became very clear

that his belief in the muslim faith was very sincere

And it raised that thought in my mind: if my faith simply the product of my

culture and my community and the things I’ve always been taught.

And if you’re brought up in a muslim community, you’ll turn out Muslim. And if

you grew up in a Jewish community then you’ll turn out Jewish.

And who am I to say that what I’ve taught is the only true way. And if it was

really subjected to an unbiased and critical would it really be able to stand.

There numerous ways in which doubts can arise. And we might have believed

the Christian faith for many years. And then suddenly we start doubting.

Did Jesus really live? Did He really die and rise again? Is my faith really true?

Well if you’ve closed your Bibles, please open them again to the gospel of

Luke. We starting a new series this morning It’ll carry us nicely into Christmas

and then we’ll continue with it into the new year. And this morning we just

gona introduce the book by looking at the opening 4 verses which tell us the

purpose of this book. And you can see it right there in the final verse of our

passage. Verse 4.

Luke has written this book for a man named Theophilus. And we don’t knopw

exactly who he is. But it’s a Greek name which means loved by God. And the

title, most excellent suggests that he was a man of high standing. But why did

Lule write it? Verse 4 “so that you may know the certainty of the things you

have been taught.

And in this gospel we’ll learn about God and about heaven and about salvation

from sin. And these are the greatest themes of the human life. And here’s the

great purpose: to give us certainty. That we won’t just view this as rumour, but

as reality. And we’ll be able to trust it not just for this life, but for our eternal

well-being.

And so this morning we just gonna kick it off with 3 reasons why we can have

certainty.

Firstly, because this is one of many accounts. Secondly because of eye-witness

accounts. Thirdly, it’s a carefully investigated account.

- This is one of many accounts (v1)

So firstly, you can have certainty because this is one of many accounts. And

you can see that in verse 1.

“many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been

fulfilled among us.”

And that’s what happens when you get a major event. If it’s a minor event like

in South Africa, if your cell-phone gets stolen then you might find one article

about it in one local news site. But if it’s a major event like Jacob Zuma

entering social media, then all the news sites are writing about it. Well this is

much more major than that. And that’s why you’ve got many accounts. And in

fact this is so major, that even today, 2000 years later, we’ve still got records of

many of these accounts.

And obviously most of these are from Christian authors. But there also many

from unbelievers. For example, the Babylonian Talmud is a Jewish history

which refers to the miracles and the influence and the crucifixion of Jesus and

it tells us that it took place at the Passover.

Josephus was another famous Jewish historian. He’s not a Christian. But he

also writes about the miracles, teaching and crucifixion of Jesus under Pontius

Pilate.

Even further abroad Cornelius Tacitus wasn’t even a Jew. He was a pagan

Roman man. He’s been described as the greatest historian of ancient Rome. He

also refers to Christ and his crucifixion. And so these are just a few examples.

There many non-Christian accounts.

And this gives us confidence in the historicity of Jesus.

FF Bruce puts it like this: “The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an

unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar.”

And if you think about it, No one really doubts the historicity of Julius Caesar.

We all believed he lived. But in fact the historical evidence is even stronger for

the existence of Christ. And I can give you more information about that

comparison if you like.

According to Otto Betz, “No serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-

historicity of Jesus.”

But obviously the most famous accounts we have are the four gospel accounts

which we find in the Bible. And many people dismiss these as being unreliable

simply because they religious. As if that disqualifies them from being historical.

But as we’ll see just now they are written to be historical accounts. And its

actually prejudiced to dismiss them simply because they are Christian. Who

says that Christians can’t write history?

And so in the Bible we find four comprehensive gospel accounts. And that also

strengthens our confidence in what we believe.

Some people struggle with this. They say: “why there four accounts instead of

one. Wouldn’t one be enough?”

Well let me give you an example.

Imagine you a mother and your son works as a journalist in Afghanistan. And

the one day you receive an e-mail from the government. And it begins with

these terrifying words: we regret to inform you… Your son was kidnapped

along with 3 of his journalist friends. And although they managed to escape,

we terribly sorry, your son has been killed.

And you receive this heartbreaking news.

But then a few weeks later these 3 close friends who escaped come and visit

you at your home. And they want to offer their condolences. And after they’ve

sympathised with you, they ask you: do you want us to tell you more about

what happened to your son.

And I really doubt you’d say: “No thank you. I received the telegram. That’s all I

need.”

No, this is your son! You’d want to hear more. And especially from these close

friends who were right there. And you’d wanna hear each of them giving their

own unique perspectives.

And one of them might talk about how your son interacted with the

kidnappers and how calm and gracious he was.

And another one might talk about his self-sacrifice and put his own life in

danger to rescue his friends.

And another one might tell you about just a few moments earlier that same

day, he was talking about his love for his family and for you.

And you’d listen to each of these accounts because each of these friends has

experienced a piece of your son’s life and even though they each talking about

the same event. And they each giving a completely true account. Yet, there’s

something unique about each of them.

Ans unless you get each of the perspectives, you fail to get the full story.

And that’s what we find in the gospels. Four different accounts of the life of

Jesus.

And some people point to these accounts. And they notice the differences. And

they say, “Look here, Matthew talks about one angel at Jesus’ tomb. And Luke

talks about two angels. And that proves there’s a contradiction. And the Bible

cant be trusted. But in fact Matthew doesn’t deny that there’s two angels. He

simply describes the one angel that speaks to the women. And so its not a

contradiction. It’s just a different perspective of the same event.

And according to Mark, Mary Magdalene come to Jesus’ tomb just after

sunrise. But according to John, she comes to Jesus tomb when its still dark.

And so here’s another obvious contradiction.

But in fact, it just takes a small amount of investigation. And you discover there

was a quite a distance from where these women stayed to where the tomb

was. And so it makes perfect sense that they might have left while it was dark

and arrived just after sunrise.

And so again its not a contradiction. Its a different perspective. And John

describes their departure while its dark. And Mark describes their arrival once

its light.

And together they give us a fuller picture of what really happened.

And so here’s this common claim that’s often just thrown out there: the Bible’s

full of contradictions.

But the truth is: Over the 2000 years, since the Bible’s been compiled, there

not one person who has come up with an obvious contradiction. there’s not

one difference that cannot be explained and reconciled with the other gospels.

And so as Josh McDowell points out, “these apparent differences ultimately

confirm the truthfulness of these accounts, rather than refute them. If all four

Gospels gave exactly the same story, in exactly the same order, with exactly

the same details, we would immediately become suspicious… …there would be

obvious collusion.

If the differences concerned the main points of the story, then there would be

justification for doubt, but when the salient points are agreed upon by every

witness, insignificant differences add to, rather than subtract from the

validity.”

And so this is the first reason for certainty. We don’t just have one account.

There many accounts and these confirm the historicity as well as giving us a

fuller picture of what really happened

But then 2ndly, we’ve don’t just have many accounts. We’ve also got eye-

witness accounts. And you can see that in verse 2.

2) We have eye-witness accounts (v2)

“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 from the

first were eye-witnesses”

And obviously, that adds credibility to an account. If the person who’s telling

you something can give you the source.

I’m sure we all belong to those frutrating Whatsapp groups filled with fake

news. And people love to forward these false reports on the group. And

normally it starts with something like: Please forward to as many people as

possible. And that’s an early warning sign. And there’ll be some story about

some virus that’s affected all our groceries or some new technique that gang

members are using to high-jack people.

And if you ask people where did you get this from, they say: oh no, it was just

forwarded to me. And they can’t tell you the source.

Well that’s what Luke’s telling us here. That even though he himself might not

have witnessed as much as someone like Matthew or John who were disciples

of Jesus.

Nevertheless Luke isn’t just passing on rumours. He’s received this from eye-

witnesses

And whats really cool is that when you read the book of Acts, Luke sometimes

includes himself in the story. And theologians refer to it as the “we” passages

of Acts. Cause suddenly Luke starts saying, “we” did this and “we” did that and

we travelled there. And so we see that he spends a lot of time with the apostle

Paul. And that’s a valuable source of information. But perhaps even more

valuable is Acts 21 verse 17 where he says: “we” visited James. And he’s talking

about James the brother of Jesus himself and the son of Mary. And it seems to

spend about 2 years in Jerusalem. And so here’s this valuable opportunity to

interview James and other eye-witnesses. And he probably interviews Mary,

because when we read the birth narrative, we get inside information, for

example in chapter 2 he says: Mary treasured all these things in her heart. How

would he know that unless he’d spoken to Mary herself?

And so that’s why if you only go to church at Christmas time you probably

always hearing sermons out of Luke, and that’s because out of all the gospels,

Luke gives us the most information about Jesus’ birth. And that might well be

due to this time he spend in Jerusalem interviewing James and probably also

Mary herself.

But for some people that’s still not good enough.

I remember hearing about a sceptic who used to tease his friend who was a

minister. And he used mock him with this line: “Seeing is believing”. And he

was so confident about this saying that he used to go and stand outside the

minister’s church on a Sunday morning and say it loud enough for people

entering to hear. Seeing is believing.

And basically the point is: if you can show me with my eyes, then I’ll believe.

But since you can’t show me I won’t believe.

And that’s what some people demand. Its not enough to receive this from

another eye-witness. They want to see it for themselves.

But I wanna suggest to you: if that’s your criteria for believing something, and

if you consistent, then you’ll have trouble believing most information that

you’ve learnt. I mean how much of your history classes at did you actually

witness for yourself? World war history or South African history. Most of us

didn’t experience these thigns for ourselves

Or what about biology and the way the body works. Most of us haven’t

actually cut open a body and witnessed the internal workings of our organs.

But we believe it because of what we’ve been told

Or what about sports results. If you missed the game between Man City and

Everton and you go onto the supersport website and you see Man city won.

And they now top of the table. Would you really say: Mmmm, I’m not sure, I

don’t believe it until I’ve watched the game for myself. No, you trust the

website.

And the list is endless. There so many things we accept, not because we’ve

seen them for ourselves, but because we trust the testimony of others.

And in fact, we even willing to make life-changing decisions on the basis of another person’s testimony.

For eg, The testimony of an eye-witness can get you locked away for life. If someone sees you stab another person with a knife. That testimony can get you locked up. And the judge doesn’t need to have witnessed it for himself. He simply needs

to hear the testimony of a witness. And on that basis he can make this life-changing decision.

And so we see learn: its not actually responsible to dismiss a message simply because you haven’t seen it..

Imagine a judge who dismissed any evidence if he himself wasn’t an eye-witness.

Well He’d be failing as a judge. And many criminals would be unconvicted. And You’d have to find a new judge.

And so we shouldn’t be suspicious of eye-witness accounts. The important thing is to test their reliability.

And so that leads us to our 3rd point. Not only does Luke tell us the source of his account: that he consulted eye-witnesses. But he also tells us the manner of his research: that he investigated carefully

3) We have a carefully investigated account (v3)

And you can see that in verse 3. “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.”

And what makes this especially striking is that Luke was a highly educated

person. We know that because of 2 reasons. Firstly because of the style of

Greek that he uses. It’s the highest quality Greek in the whole New Testament.

And so clearly here you’ve got a well read and educated writer.

And we also know that because he was a doctor. And in Colossians 4 Paul

refers to him as our dear friend, Luke, the doctor. And therefore he would

know what it means to examine something thoroughly and investigate it to

give an accurate report.

And so that’s the kind of person we dealing with. A highly educated and careful

investigator.

And we’ll see this as we work through Luke’s gospel that there numerous

occasions where he refers to background details and the names of cities and

important people. And the historical information he provides is incredibly

accurate and precise.

And just to support this, on the screen, there’s a picture of a man named Sir

William Ramsay. And he’s one of the most famous students of archaeology and

of ancient Greek history who’s ever lived. And he devoted his whole life to

studying what the world was like in the times of the NT. And in 1906 He was

knighted for his contributions to our understanding.

But what’s most striking about him is that when he set out to go and live in

Asia Minor (where all these things took place) and to conduct all his studies, he

himself didn’t believe that the NT documents were reliable. In fact he had

exactly the same attitude we referred to earlier: that because they religious,

they can’t be historical.

And according to many accounts, this was actually part of his purpose: to

disprove the NT documents and specifically the book of Acts. And he wanted to

put Luke on trial and prove him to be unreliable.

But eventually he began to see that Luke’s writing is remarkably accurate. And

he’s got no choice but to take it seriously. And eventually he gets converted.

And this is what he writes after a lifetime of study: “Further study showed that

the book could bear the most minute scrutiny as an authority for the facts of

the Aegean world, and that it was written with such judgment, skill, art and

perception of truth as to be a model of historical statement.”

In another place he writes, “Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its

trustworthiness.”

“You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historians and

they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment…”

And so here uv got the cream of the crop. Sir William Ramsay himself. This

expert in historical studies. He investigates Luke as a sceptic. But he comes to

these conclusions.

And so if you looking for an historical document and a carefully investigated

account. You can’t get better than this. Luke is as good as it gets.

Now obviously we don’t only view Luke as an historical document. We do also

view it as Scripture, that it’s the Word of God. And we know this from 1

Timothy 5: 18 where there’s a direct quote from Luke and Paul describes it as

Scripture. And so this isn’t only a human document. Its inspired by the Holy

Spirit.

But the point is that this doesn’t detract from the reliability as an historical

document. If anything it adds to the reliability, because Luke was helped by the

Spirit.

And so I hope that whets your appetite for Luke’s gospel. We gona be studying

it for the next few months. And this is my prayer: that it’ll give us certainty

about what we’ve been taught.

But let me conclude with this final warning: Beware of the dangers of doubt. As

Simon Manchester puts it: We often tempted to doubt our beliefs and to

believe our doubts.

But we need to beware of that, because so often our doubts have just been

planted there by some invalid rumour or by some unverified comment and

they don’t have real support. But just like a fungus that kills a a baobab, if we

don’t deal with it, if we just allow it to linger and to permeate our hearts, then

it will impact our faith.

And as an individual you’ll be less committed to your prayer life and in your

Bible reading and as a parent you’ll be less concerned to teach your children.

And as a church member you’ll be less willing serve. And as a witness you’ll be

less courageous to give reasons for your faith. And in all these ways you’ll be

less devoted to the work of the Lord.

But an even greater than that is the danger on the day of judgment. That on

that day, your soul might be eternally lost.

And so let me urge you: Don’t stake the value of your soul on a liberal theory.

And imagine you come to the judgment seat: and God asks: why didn’t you

believe?

And you say: I saw this quote by Bertrand Russel. that Jesus didn’t even exist.

And my English teacher told me, the bible’s full of contradictions.

And I remember reading for myself: in Mark’s gospel it says: Jesus was

crucified at the 3rd hour. But in John’s gospel it says he was still standing before

Pontius Pilate at the 6th hour.

And so there’s the proof. The bible’s full of contradictions

And God’ll say to you:

Did it ever occur to you that Bertrand Russel might be wrong?

Or that your English teacher might be uninformed.

Or that these apparent contradictions might have an explanation… that John

was using a Roman time system which begins at midnight. And Mark was using

a Jewish time system which begins at sunrise. And so there is no contradiction.

It just required further investigation

And all these liberal theories have been explained by Christian people

And you simply needed to investigate.

And I don’t wanna be there on that day to witness the shame and

embarrasment if you don’t have an answer and now you’ve gotta go to hell ,

because you blindly accepted a rumour.

And so that’s really what I’m asking us to do this morning. I’m not asking you to

ignore your doubts. And Im definitely not making light of them. In fact I’m

doing the opposite. I’m asking you to recognize them and take them seriously

enough to investigate them to see if they true.

And as Sir William Ramsay discovered, I firmly believe the Bible can stand up

under the closest scrutiny. And there many resources to help us investigate.

Let me just mention this one by Josh Mcdowell. Its called evidence that

demands a verdict. And its very helpful. It deals with questions challenging

Christians in the 21st century. You can find it in our library. Or if you want to

discuss something with me, you welcome to send me an e-mail or come and

chat. Id love to discuss these things. We all go through periods of doubt. And

so we needn’t be ashamed of our doubts. But lets put them to the test and be

certain of what we believe.

Let’s pray.