Well, as we get started into the gospel of Luke, I want you to think with me for a second, and just imagine that you're on a helicopter. Maybe Bill's flying it. I don't know if he knows how to fly helicopters. If not, maybe somebody else. It'd be a dangerous ride if he doesn't. But let's say that you're on a helicopter, and the helicopter takes you out into the middle of nowhere, out into a vast wilderness. And he sets you down, drops you off, and he flies away. And all you've got is the shirt on your back, and there you are. And you're hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from anything that we would call civilization. There's no people. There's no houses. There's no roads. And you're just there. You're there. And what do you do? Well, the first thing you would think of, of course, is food, water, and shelter. That's what I need right now. And I need it fast. I need it fast. Food, water, and shelter. But we would feel awfully alone. And we would feel very dependent on our own strength. And probably for most of us, there would be a whole lot of lack of confidence in that, because we'd be relying on ourselves. And we know ourselves. And we know all the things that can happen. That's kind of a good way of describing the human condition, describing human beings who are without God. And if some of us can remember before we were believers, and that's the way life felt, wasn't it? That's the way life felt. Out in the middle of nowhere, we don't know what the answers are, and we're just depending on ourselves. And that's all we've got. That's all we've got. Well, since we just took a helicopter ride, let's now climb into a rocket. And let's go off into space toward Mars or Jupiter or someplace and look back at the Earth. Just look back at the Earth. And what do we see? We see a dot out there, a dirt cloud in space. That's borrowing a line from a song that Leslie and I love, Randy Stonehill's. But it's a dirt cloud in space. And there we are, out in the middle of nowhere, And we see other dots in the sky, millions, billions of them. And here we are. And this is where we live, is on this little ball out in the middle of nowhere, millions and billions of miles away from other things. And I think that's part of what's so fascinating about today in this incredible search that's going on right now through our technology for the existence of life somewhere else. We want desperately to find life somewhere else. And part of that is just a good thing. We just want to answer that question scientifically. But at the bottom of it all, do you hear an echo of, Are we alone? Are we alone? And we want to prove that we're not alone. And that seems to be the thing that really drives spiritually that search to go into space and to see what's there, because we want to know whether we're alone or not. Well, what if I told you that that question was answered 2,000 years ago in the Gospel of Luke? And I'm not saying, not going to say here that Luke is saying that there were space aliens who came and all that kind of thing. I haven't been watching the History Channel that much. So that's pretty entertaining stuff, the way they twist things around, twist scripture around, even to mean that things happen because of aliens. But that isn't Luke's answer. Luke's answer is that we've never been alone, just like the rest of scripture is saying, that we've never been alone. And in fact the God who created the universe is ever present in our lives he's ever caring he's ever loving he's also full of justice and he's also full of grace but through all of that. He speaks. He is speaking to us right here on this ball out in the middle of space. God speaks to us. In fact, there are 300 verses or so in scripture that refer to what is written. In other words, God tells his prophets to write this down. He says that many times. And then Jesus quotes things and he says, it is written. It is written. And what that means is that God has spoken, God has spoken these things, and so listen up. Paul explains this, explains the significance of all of that in Romans 15, four, he says, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, and here's the reason for it all, we might have hope. And so God speaks to us because he loves us and he wants us to have hope. He wants us to have hope. What a beautiful thing. Now, what does hope come from? Well, true hope comes from certainty, doesn't it? It comes from being sure of something. In other words, when we're full of doubt, that certainly isn't hope. If we doubt that something is true, we're not hoping in it at all. Hope comes from knowing. Of course, we can think we know things. We can be mighty certain of a lot of things that simply aren't true. When I was around 20 years old, for instance, I was pretty certain that I'd end up working for National Geographic and be one of their top guys. That never happened. That never happened. I also remember vowing that I would never own a minivan with woodgrain paneling. And I'm not kidding. Six months after that, Leslie and I were buying a minivan with woodgrain panels because our lives had changed because we had children on the way. I also remember in college vowing that I would never fall prey to the bad parts about the American dream of becoming a materialist who would desire very close to the top of his list to have a nice house in a two-car garage. So when our boys were Like what 12 or so we built a two-car garage right next to our very nice house on a nice piece of property and so life changed and so these things that I was certain of I Found out that it was a false certainty. I didn't know what I was talking about We can be certain of a lot of things we can be certain about the economy which always fascinates me that You hear the pundits talk about things as if they really know what's going to happen and the economy has proven over and over and over again how unreliable it is. So we can't be certain in that. And then of course around here especially we talk about politics and we are certain that this politician or that one is either going to save us or destroy us. Sometimes that happens, I guess. But you know what? We're still here, aren't we? We're still here, and we're still Americans. We're still plugging along. But you see, the reason that those things turn out to be sort of false things to put our hope in is because they're really just guesswork. We're really just basing our opinions on those things, on our feelings, and on the things that we desire as human beings, on ourselves, on our own selfish wants, and that kind of thing. And this is just like the kind of certainty that we can think that we have when we talk about God. And we say, well, you know, God just wants me to be sincere and I'm going to create my own reality about who God is. And God will just kind of go along with that. And when the time comes for me to leave this earth, whatever reality I dreamed up is going to be the one that happens. And some of us are pretty certain of that. And so there's a lot of things that we can be very certain about that just simply are not true. And so we've got to base our certainty in something, right? You see, true hope comes from real certainty, and certainty comes from knowing that things are true, that they really are true. Kind of like the simplest example I can think of for this is that if we wanted to buy a new car and we had X number of dollars in the bank, and lo and behold, the car costs X number of dollars, we can go buy the car. We're certain of that. And so this is the kind of certainty that Luke is going to point us toward. It's certainty in a true and objective sense. He's giving us an incredible amount of evidence so that we can have hope because of our certainty. And so as we spin around on our little dirt cloud in space, we as human beings do wonder about a lot of things. We wonder about a lot of very important things. And the first one, and the one that's especially on our hearts and minds today, is are we alone? Are we alone? Or are we just cells and bones and water and blood And there's no real purpose to our lives. There's not really. There's just really no point beyond the little pleasures that we get out of life and we live our lives and we die. And then that's it. And so the question is, how can we be sure of what the answers are? How can how can any of us be sure that there's something that's bigger, something beyond our own existence out there? How can we be sure of our own purpose in life? How can I be sure that my life really has meaning? How can I be sure of that? And ultimately, how can I be sure about God? about who God is, what he's like, and what he requires of me. How can we be sure of that? Because when you get down to it, there either is a God or there isn't. There's no in between here. There either is a God or there isn't. And so this is fundamentally the most important question we can ask. How can I be sure? How can I be sure about God? But you know, these are the questions that Luke is going to answer for us, and he's going to do it with certainty, with a beautiful, beautiful certainty. And that's because the Christian faith isn't just blind hope. It's a real hope, and it's real because we see the evidence. We see the evidence in what God has said, and then we see the evidence in what has actually happened and how it all matches up. And that gives us hope for our salvation and it gives us hope for eternity. And so let's go ahead and turn to our passage and look at the first four verses of Luke. And this is where Luke introduces himself, introduces what he's going to say and what the point of his sitting down to write is. Beginning in verse one, he says, in as much 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. And there is the title for this message that you may have certainty because that is the point. That is the reason why Luke has sat down to write his gospel. Well the first thing we need to do is to look a little bit at who in the world Luke is in the first place. Well Luke is known as the evangelist and he was a Gentile which just simply means that he wasn't of the Jewish faith before he came to Christ. We don't know when he was converted or the circumstances around his conversion but but we do we're pretty sure of the fact that he wasn't an eyewitness to Christ himself that he came to faith after Christ ascended into heaven. He was also a faithful companion of the Apostle Paul. In fact, he was a companion right up until the end of Paul's life when many of Paul's friends had abandoned him. And so Luke was with Paul throughout a whole lot of Paul's ministry. We don't know where Luke was born or even when. We don't know about his death either, but we do have some heartwarming little vignettes into the character of Paul. Or excuse me of Luke because Paul says in Colossians 4 14 He says he calls Luke the beloved physician and he sends his greetings from Luke the beloved physician And so he was apparently known and loved by by many in the faith. He appears to have used his gift of being a physician. He was a true physician. He used it unselfishly and and he he helped people in their illnesses including Paul. There's a lot of evidence for that. And of course along the way as he has helped as he helped people he also cultivated a lot of friendships. And that's why Paul could describe him collectively as our friend. So Luke was very well known and well liked and very well respected. And so speaking of respect some have credited Luke with being the very first Christian historian and certainly that seems to be the case. In fact today even today among secular scholars he's very respected as a historian and I think that's pretty noteworthy because a lot of secular scholars have a lot of skepticism about many parts of the Bible but Luke isn't one of them that they have that kind of skepticism. That kind of reputation that Luke built because of his scholarship and his thorough investigation is actually reflected here in our passage. Because Luke points out himself that he followed all things closely for some time past. In other words, he was taking notes. He was paying attention. striving to understand the why things were happening and the things that he was taught so that he could pass them on in the form of this gospel. But it's important for us to understand something here because Luke isn't trying to prove that these things happened because he's already absolutely sure that they did. happen. And the reason for that is because he's relying on very reliable sources on the apostles and as we'll see in a minute on Mark's gospel as well. These were witnesses of Christ when he walked the earth and was doing his teaching. And these were people also who were believers who were filled with the Holy Spirit. and were very mature in their faith. And so Luke understood they weren't trying to paint a picture. They weren't being salesmen about what they had seen. And so their whole purpose in teaching and in conveying these things was to convey the truth about them. And so Luke is compiling all of these things as he follows them closely for some time. He spent a long time doing this. But you see, Luke, again, he's not he's not concerned with whether these things happened. What Luke is concerned about is that they happened and why they happened. And that's because he wants to know what it all means. He wants to know what it all means. For Luke, these events, this story testifies not only to the fulfillment of countless prophecies and we're gonna see that at the opening few chapters of Luke. But also what it means is that Christ really is the son of God who saved us from our sins. That's what Luke is driving at. And simply by telling this story, by telling the story of Jesus Christ and the gospel, he's proclaiming the gospel. He's preaching to us. He's telling us that this not only happened, but here's why. And that's why it's something that we need to understand. And so ultimately, as he as he shows us that Christ really is the son of God, he really is the one who saves us from our sins. We see that we who believe in him and live for him will spend eternity with him. And that's true for anybody who believes in him and lives for him. We will all spend eternity with him. And that's exactly what he wants to show Theophilus. It seems like Theophilus may be a believer already. And so Luke is writing to him to undergird that, to firm that up for him. But we don't know that for sure. We think that Theophilus is a person of nobility or high rank you know some kind of government official maybe because Luke refers to him in our passage with the formal most excellent Theophilus. So beyond that we really don't know a whole lot about Theophilus but here's something that's really cool about his name. His name means lover of God or loved of God and So I think that we in the 21st century as we sit down to read Luke and understand it it speaks directly to us because what Luke is doing as he writes his gospel is he's making us lovers of God and ones who are loved of God as well as we come to faith and as we learn to live to his glory. And so Luke sits down to write an orderly account to this man named Theophilus. I wonder what would have happened if we named one of our boys Theophilus. That's a cool name. He was writing about 60 AD. It's the longest book in the New Testament. There are 500 verses that are not found in either Matthew or Mark. That's a lot of extra stuff here. And this is an indication of how thorough Luke's research was. He was digging deep for the facts here. And in fact Acts the book of Acts is the sequel to Luke which was also written by Luke. And Acts is about the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in believers lives and it's also about the formation of the church after Christ ascended into heaven. But if you take Luke and Acts together it makes up about 30 percent of the New Testament. That's a lot. That's a lot of writing. And so this is significant. And God wants us to pay attention to what Luke has to say. Now Luke is one of the synoptic gospels. Synoptic means with the same eye or with the same viewpoint. And so along with Luke Matthew and Mark are the synoptic gospels. They approach things from the same viewpoint. And in fact Luke and Matthew borrow from Mark. There are some passages that are almost identical to what's in Mark in both Matthew and Luke. And so there was obviously some sharing going on. Mark is then one of those excellent sources that Luke turned to to make sure that we could be certain. And so The thing that they each have in common, each of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, each of them have in common is that they tell the story in the same general direction, and they go at it geographically, and they begin in Galilee, and they end up in Jerusalem. at the foot of the cross and then of course with Christ's resurrection and ascension into heaven. But Luke goes into far more detail as he gets there, a whole lot more detail. We just mentioned the 500 more verses than in Matthew and Mark. Jesus' ministry is actually sandwiched between two amazing sets of prophecies. The first three or so chapters of of Luke are prophecies about the coming of Christ and how Christ fulfills those prophecies. The end of Luke is about four chapters of similar stuff where Christ tells about the end times and about his coming again. And so Jesus ministry is sandwiched in between those prophecies and his point here. His point here Luke's point is that God didn't just predict the coming of Christ and he's not just predicting something like an economist would predict how you know whether interest rates are going to go up or something he's he's not predicting. God is saying that he's planned all of these things he's planned them and not only did he plan them but those prophecies about Christ's coming they actually happened. And so that gives us a great deal of certainty as we think about the end times and about Christ coming again because we can look back on those prophecies that he has already fulfilled and we can know with certainty that he's going to come again. Well between those divine assurances is the story of Christ's life and ministry and he proves his authority and his love and compassion and so on. But also Luke records more parables than the other gospels. In fact, John doesn't record any. But Matthew and Mark record far fewer. And in fact, I think Matthew has five or six fewer than Luke does. Luke has 27 parables in it. That's a lot of parables. So we're going to have fun going through those. But you see, he's again, he's interested in the meaning of Christ's coming. And those parables teach us the why and the how that we're saved and they teach us about the character of God. And they teach us ultimately about our own purpose which is to glorify him and to live for his glory. But of course the centerpiece of all of this as it is in any of the gospels is the cross. That's where Luke is taking us. All of those prophecies regarding the birth of Christ all of the teachings of Christ all of the stories of his ministry all of that points us toward salvation points us toward the cross. those in time prophecies and and Luke's sequel in Acts they actually spring forth from the cross. That's why I'm calling it the centerpiece. The cross is the centerpiece. Those end times prophecies and acts all of that points toward the coming again of Jesus Christ. It points us toward eternity and toward the certain hope of being forever in the presence of the one who saved us. And then we can be certain of that future because Luke shows us how Christ's coming was something that God told us about and it actually happened. It's just an amazing fact to me. And so looking ahead, we can know what's going to happen because God has said it's going to. It's just beautiful. And so all of this evidence and all of these stories about Christ all of the accounts of Christ teaching all of it comes from the very people who witnessed it. Because Luke says in our passage he says just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us. And he's making reference here to what they have told us what they have taught us. These were the eyewitnesses and these were the ministers of the word the ones who are filled with the Holy Spirit and who speak the truth. And so they were the ones who told us the gospel in the first place. And so just pause for a second think about. If you've ever read a newspaper article that really didn't quote anybody who was involved or who was there, you automatically have a whole lot of doubts about it. So Luke is a good journalist in this sense. He's done thorough interviews, and he's done his homework, he's done his research, and he's told us where he's gotten his information. On the flip side of that, Leslie and I have received recently a couple envelopes in the mail from car dealerships. And it's this letter. And in the letter is a copy of an email that someone supposedly sent to the salesman about me, because I might be interested in this particular car. Well, of course, I don't know these people from Adam. It's all made up. And what it causes me to do is think, I'm never going to go to that dealership for as long as I live. Because if they feel like they have to deceive me to get me there, they're certainly not going to get my business because I can't trust the amount that I'm paying or what their service is going to be or anything. But you see, Luke is so far from that. He's done his homework, and he's speaking the truth. He's gotten his information from people who love the Lord and who all they care about is the truth and that's what Luke cares about and so that's where he's coming from. Now Luke's gospel has been called many things. It's been called and some of these are a little weird so just bear with me I just threw them in here because they're interesting. It's been called the gospel of the nations full of mercy and hope. assured to the world by the love of a suffering savior, the gospel of the saintly life, the gospel for the Greeks, the gospel of the future, the gospel of progressive Christianity, that's the one that raises some question marks for me, of the universality and gratuitousness I think that's what that says of the gospel and the historic gospel. The gospel of Jesus as the good physician and the savior of mankind, the gospel of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, the gospel of womanhood, the gospel of the outcast, of the Samaritan, the publican, the harlot, and the prodigal, and also the gospel of tolerance. And I don't know where that one comes from either. But you know what we're going to stick with the gospel of certainty because that's exactly what it is. That's exactly what Luke wants us to have is certainty and he wants us to have certainty so that we can have hope. That's the whole point of all of this. This is the gospel of certainty because it answers the question of how can I be sure. You know, this is the question of questions. How can I be sure about God? How can I be sure that my life has meaning and purpose? How can I be sure that there's something beyond the here and now, that there's something out there beyond this dirt cloud in space? And see, Luke answers all these questions with the evidence that we need. And he speaks right into our hearts today. And his accuracy as a historian gives him the credibility to believe what he says. And his thorough examination of what Christ taught helps us to understand why Christ came. And why did Christ come? Well, he came to save his own. In other words, brothers and sisters, we are not alone. We never have been. God has been there all along and he even came in the flesh. He came in the flesh and he lived a perfect life. And he died on the cross. Certainly he did all of that for his own glory. Absolutely. But what gives God the glory is to die for sinners just to save sinners from their sin. You see God doesn't see just another dirt cloud out in space. He doesn't leave us in the wilderness just to hope in our own weaknesses. In Luke we find our spiritual food and our water and our shelter and we find it from the pen of a renowned historian and physician. He gathered irrefutable evidence from trusted people from eyewitnesses and ministers of the word who testify straight into our lives about the reality of Jesus Christ. And so as we wonder how in the world we can be sure, Luke answers absolutely emphatically. Not only did these things happen, but they mean that Jesus Christ really is the Messiah. He is the one who saves us from sin. Amen? Let's pray.