Luke 2026

If you've brought up a Bible with you, then please do turn to Luke chapter one.

And we're going to read the first few verses of Luke one and then, we're going to turn to Luke 24 and read some of the last verses of Luke's gospel as well. So, we're starting in the evening, a new series in the book of James as I said and this morning, we're beginning a new morning series two in Luke's gospel. Let's hear god's word. 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 eyewitnesses and servants of the word.

With this in mind, since I, myself, have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. And then Luke 24, here is Jesus after the resurrection appearing to his disciples and we're going to read from verse 44 to 49. Jesus said to them, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures.

He told them, this is what is written. The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my father has promised. But stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.

My name is Pete Woodcock. If you're new here, I'm one of the pastors of the church. We're starting this, new series in Luke. It's fantastic gospel. I do wanna encourage you if if I can to to think about bringing a sort of paper bible because it's less distracting than on the phone, but also you can flip to and fro.

We would normally bring boxes of it, but our team have to bring so much stuff. So if there's anyone that wants to volunteer in bringing a box of Bibles then that that that would be great. But it's really good to have your own. It gets you familiar with the scriptures. Let me pray.

Father help us now as we look at this beginning of this Luke's gospel. Pray that it would really touch us and move us, cause us to love the Lord Jesus more in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. It's very hard to know what you can actually know.

You know, what is truth? How can you know what is true? We live in a world that's literally drowning with information. And you can get an answer almost, you know, about anything in seconds. You just Google something.

I've noticed people doing that in Bible studies, you know, ask a question and Google it. And, it's like you're talking to people and they're down on the phone googling. You can Google anything, or you can go to some kind of AI chat thing or, helper or whatever. You can check TikTok or you can go to Reddit or, you can read the comments. And yet, with all that information, it's getting harder and harder to know what is actually true.

I was speaking to Sebastian just beforehand about what's going on in Germany. And it's very hard to know. You get little clips. What is true? What's just exaggerated?

What information has been manipulated? Photographs are edited, so you can hardly believe them. Videos are made into deep fake. Headlines that are technically true. They deliberately mislead what what it's saying or influences confidently tell you something that's complete nonsense.

And then it's passed on to someone else as if that's true. Have you ever have you ever bought something that's got five stars, you know, and you think, well, I'll buy that and it comes back in as a piece of junk. And people say, trust me. But why? In many ways, actually, it's harder to prove something true today than it is some historic event.

Now we're starting a new series on Sunday morning as we've said in Luke's gospel. I'll show you who Luke is in a minute. But, the word gospel is very interesting because it's news. It's good news. It actually comes from the word God spiel.

God spiel. God's spiel. God's message. God's news. And that's what Luke's gospel is claiming to be, God's message.

And then when you read it, you'll see that God's message is all about Jesus of Nazareth, this historic figure. And when you go through Luke's gospel, we'll see this as we as we go through, you'll see it's about his life and his death. And the consequences of his life and his death on us are massive. He's calling us to think about our life and our death on the basis of what he's done. It, we'll see his teaching, and it's extraordinary.

It's teaching about God and about life and about what people are and about heaven and hell and the future. We'll see him having encounters with people, all kinds of people, people that are pro him, people that are negative towards him. He has these encounters with the rich and the poor and the religious and, the political people and just the ordinary workers of the day. We all see these miracles that he does these things that no ordinary man can do. He makes the blind see and the deaf hear and the dumb speak and the lame walk and he's able to, say to the wind and the rain be still.

And then we're gonna see his death at the end and his resurrection that he rose again from the dead. So they're the things that we're gonna see in this gospel. That is the news that God wants us to hear. One historian wrote about the impact of Jesus on our world. He said this, regardless of what any anyone may personally think or believe about Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for for twenty centuries.

If it were possible with some sort of super magnet to pull out of that history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left? The answer is, of course, very little. So there's a historian saying, whatever you think about this person that Luke is talking about, he's had an impact on our world that is incredible. But how do we know it's true? How do we know that the stories haven't just been sort of embellished, exaggerated?

There was a phrase, you can't use it now, but I'm going to use it, that I I don't know why. It was called Chinese whispers. And I know if you're from China, that sounds like belittling. But it was always called Chinese whispers when I was a kid. I don't know why, but you would whisper something, and then someone would whisper to someone else, and someone else, and it came out wrong.

I don't know what that's saying about China, so forgive me. But but is that what it is? Is it been embellished? Has it been exaggerated? Has it been whispered to some person, then the next person, then the next person, and it's come out in a language that we don't even understand or recognize.

Is that is that what it's saying? How do we know? How do we know they're not myths? There was a book back in the nineteen sixties written by a bishop of the Anglican church called the myth of god incarnate. He was claiming it was all a myth.

How do we know it isn't? When Christianity makes these enormous claims of who Jesus is and enormous claims about who he is and how it should impact our lives. How do we know? Is it reasonable to believe them? Do we not just say, just have faith?

Where's the evidence? The popular atheist doctor Richard Dawkins, he wrote a letter to his 10 year old daughter in which he published that letter in his his book, The Devil's Chaplain. And at the end of the letter, it it reads like this. Next time someone tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself. Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence?

Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority, or revelation? And next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them, what kind of evidence is there for that? And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say, your loving daddy. I wish he'd apply that to his own thinking, but it's a good good little letter, isn't it? What is the evidence?

What kind of evidence is there for Jesus? Well, Luke gives it right at the beginning of this gospel. He basically he's not saying, I just want you to believe. He's not saying that. He's saying, I've investigated this.

I've gone back to the sources. I've spoken to eyewitnesses. I've put this material together very carefully, and now you examine it for yourself. You see what's going on here. So in this introduction, which is Luke chapter one verses one to four, if you have that open, that'd be helpful.

In this introduction, you see a number of words. I'm gonna just pick on them. They're a little bit out of order, but I think you'll you'll see why I'm doing it. The first word I want you to see is certainty. Certainty.

Look at verse three of chapter one. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know, there's the word, the certainty of things you have been taught. See the word certainty, very important word. Luke looks very, very clear, remarkably clear in what he's writing and why he's writing. He wants this man Theophilus and therefore us, we'll have a look at him in a minute, but he wants us to know certainty.

Christianity is not presented as I have a feeling it's probably true. It's not look, it doesn't matter if it's true or not. The the the sort of thought behind the myth is really good. It's not that. It's not well, my parents believed, so so I believe.

It's not, well, you were brought up in this sort of country, so you need to believe that. It's not I was brought up in church, and that's what I believe. My grandma believed it. My mom believed it. I believe it.

It's not that sort of thing. It's not even I had a powerful experience, some kind of spiritual experience. It's bigger than that. He wants us to have confidence grounded in reality. All those other things may matter or they may not matter, but he wants us to be grounded in reality, in truth.

Now we know from other places in the New Testament that Luke, the writer of this gospel, was a medical doctor. But he's also an incredible historian, a great historian. Let me just give you some evidence of that. There's a man, a British man called, sir William Ramsey. He was considered and is still considered one of the greatest archaeologists that have ever been.

By his death in 1939, he'd become the foremost authority on the history of Asia Minor and a leading scholar in the studies of new of the New Testament, and that's what we're reading. From his post of classical art and architecture at Oxford, He was professor there. He was appointed the Regus, the Latin professor at Aberdeen. He was knighted in nineteen o six to mark his distinguished service to the world of scholarship. He gained three honorary fellowships from Oxford colleges.

He had nine honorary doctorates from Britain, the continent, North America universities. He was an honorary member of nearly every society on archaeology. He he actually was a founder member of the British Academy on Archaeology and Science, and it goes on and on and on. He's an amazing bloke and still considered you can Google it, and you'll find stuff about him. And he was brought up to believe the New Testament was nonsense.

And particularly in those days, the books that were really attacked was Luke's gospel and the book of Acts, the second part of Luke's gospel that Luke wrote. They were considered fraudulent second century fraudulers. And so he spent thirty years in Asia Minor trying to give more evidence to show that they were forgeries. His conclusion was they weren't forgeries. His conclusion after thirty years was that you can trust the Bible historically.

This is what he said. This is a statement. Luke is a historian of first rank, not merely on his statements of facts trustworthy. This old author should be placed along with the greatest of historians. He goes on and writes, Luke is unsurpassed in respects to its trustworthiness.

Now at the time, they were saying names of towns and cities were made up, words that Luke used weren't around until the second century. He investigated all of that and found that actually Luke was telling the truth. Now I know this isn't like mathematical certainty. Luke isn't trying to say that because you don't prove historical events in the same way that you prove that two plus two equals four. But it doesn't mean that historical claims are just guesses, does it?

Every day, we make decisions based on historical evidence. Were you in the room when your parents were born? No. But there seems to be evidence that you had parents. Were you there in 1066 when William landed and conquered this country?

Were you there? No. But you use the word pork and beef, which are French sort of type of words instead of when you're eating pig or cow. Were you there in 1666? Everything is '66 in this country if you're not used to our English history.

1066, William landed. 1666, what happened? Great fire in London. Were you there? How do you know that?

Well, you can go to London. There's monuments where it was started, and there's people that wrote down evidence of it and and and all of that sort of stuff. Were you there in 1966 when England won the World Cup? Were you there? You were there.

See, there's someone who was there. And your dad was there, wasn't he? Yeah. So now we're coming nearer. We've got but you you weren't there.

But you base your whole but there are British people that base their whole life, that we won it once, you know. You've got good reason to believe those things, that those things happened. Because we can know stuff through testimony, through writings, through evidence, reliable sources, and that's exactly the certainty that Luke is saying about what he's writing about the Lord Jesus Christ. He's saying it's trustworthy. It's certain.

So here's this medical doctor, this incredible historian that says in verse three, I too decided to write an orderly account for you most excellent Theophilus, so that you may that know the certainty of the things that you've been taught. There's a certainty here. That's the first word. Here's the second word. Careful investigation, two words.

Verse three again, with this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning. See, this isn't casual research here. This isn't typing into Google. This isn't asking AI to do a little bit of research. This isn't scrolling through media thinking, well, Jesus is an interesting bloke.

I think I'll write a blog about him. That's not it's it's careful investigation, examining, scrutinizing. The word that is used for investigate literally means that sifting out that which is error, scrutinizing. It's to subject to thorough investigation. That's what he's doing.

He's a doctor, remember? And doctors do that, don't they? Imagine going to the doctor with a pain in your leg, and the doctor says, oh, well, I'll have a Google of that, see what the influencers are saying about your leg. Now sometimes it seems like that is what they are doing. They're typing something in.

In fact, the doctor I went to last week said to me, well, not only have you got leg trouble, you've got terrible asthma, haven't you? I said, I have? Oh, she said, oh, Sorry. That was the last patient. So I'm sitting there thinking, are you are you gonna take my leg off because the next patient has to have their leg off?

I actually said that to her, and she laughed, and I was pleased with that. But but doctors doctors, you know, they a decent doctor isn't gonna do that. They're gonna investigate the problem. They're gonna send you for a CT scan. They're gonna send you to another expert doctor.

They and and and they and if they just treat badly and don't investigate, then you ask for a second opinion. They send you for blood tests and scans, and there's the history of your your your medical history, not someone else's medical history. They they give you evidence, and they diagnose the problems. And that's the approach Luke has to the story of Jesus. Seriously checking the evidence.

Verse two, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. He's not interested in a Jesus that is evolved over time and turned into some mythical character. He's thorough. Back to sir William Ramsey, that great archaeologist. He wrote, you may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian, and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment.

Carefully investigated. Thirdly, again, two words together. Fulfilled and eyewitnesses. Do you see it there? Fulfilled and eyewitnesses.

Now, I've put these words together because I think that is what Luke is doing. We'll see that in a minute. But eyewitnesses, he's talking to eyewitnesses of the events of Jesus. He goes back. He he as I say, he he he goes back and look, if you read, if you read Luke's gospel, we were going to read the whole of Luke chapter one, but you'll see it there.

He's right into history, right into names that you could go and find out about if you lived in that day. He's right into details, actually dates even, and it and it's quite extraordinary. But his details about Mary and the birth of Jesus are bigger than the other gospels. It's it's as if and I I guess he did. He's got Mary and said, look, I I want a decent coffee with you.

I'll take you to lunch. Let's sit down. I'm gonna grill you. And he's got all these details about Mary and Mary's cousin and Zacharias and all these people and their poems. He's picked up all this stuff.

He's given them a grilling and he places everything in a historical setting so it can be checked and seen, and he's that he's looking at the eyewitnesses. He's not hearing someone down the line. I mean, that's the trouble with lots of people, isn't it? People say, well, I like to think of Jesus. Well, stop saying I like to think of Jesus.

That's not the Jesus of the bible. I like to think I I was, hearing a vicar woman. She had all the dog collar on and all the gear of religious gear. She had a bible open and she was saying, Jesus today, if Jesus lived today, he would take women to the abortion clinic and would be pro abortion. Where do you get that from?

Why have you said that? Jesus today, he was a homosexual because he didn't get married, so he must have been. Where do where's the evidence for that? It's just what you think. And there are millions of Jesuses that people invent in their own thinking.

But he doesn't do that. He goes back to the evidence. Were you there is the question. Were you there? Okay.

Then I'll take your this is the trouble, isn't it, with people? We need to ask the question when they say, I like to think of Jesus. Were you there? Imagine, you're outside there and you see an accident, a nasty accident, and someone dies. It's a fatal accident outside or or rather there is an accident.

And, you're brought into court and the judge is saying, were you there? And he said, was there. I saw the event. The black car was going far too fast. That bloke was on his phone, and he was going far too fast.

You were there. And then someone comes in, else, another witness. Call a witness in. And the judge says, were you there? No.

I was 2,000 miles away, but I like to think of it in these terms. What would the judge say? It's just nonsense. Were you there two thousand years ago when Jesus no. But I'd like to think of him.

Stop that. And Luke says, I'm not doing that. I'm going back to eyewitnesses. But Luke was particularly investigating the eyewitness accounts of the fulfillment of prophecies. That's what he's particularly interested in, and that's why I put those words together, fulfillment and eyewitnessing.

That's that's what he's about. He's not just saying Jesus is a historical man. He's not just saying Jesus is a remarkable man, he's not even just saying Jesus is a remarkable man that's more than man, he's actually claiming that the Jesus story that he's investigating firsthand fits into the developing story that has been developing over centuries. That's his argument. That's the argument he's making.

The Old Testament part of the Bible, that bigger section of the Bible is not just a selection as we were seeing last week of disconnected stories and religious poems and but it contains promises and patterns and predictions about a person that will come. And Luke's saying, he's your man. He keeps on saying, and you'll find this as we go through Luke. This happened, eyewitness accounts. Look back to the promise that this would happen, and look again because it's fulfilled here.

This happened, it was promised, and you see it fulfilled. And Luke overwhelms us with the fulfillments of these foretold events that you get in the Old Testament. That's why I had read Luke chapter 24. Just go to Luke 24 because it's the sort of bookend. You got chapter one and then Luke 24.

It's like the bookend. And you hear Jesus himself telling us what what it's all about. And he says in Luke chapter 24, he's talking to his disciples after the death and resurrection. And he said to them, this is what I told this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled.

There's the word. That is written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened up their minds so that they could understand the scriptures. He told them, this is what is written. The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.

You are my witnesses of these things. See, what Luke wants us to see is that Jesus isn't just a flash in the pan person that was born and then died and rose again even. That actually there were great predictions, there were foretellings, there's a story that's been going on for hundreds of years. And what Luke is doing is saying that he's the fulfillment of them. He fills them full.

He's what they were all about. He's what that whole Old Testament history was about. If you go to chapter 23, you see Luke in his full glory doing these fulfillment things. I'm not gonna read it. I'm just gonna tell you, and then you can look at it if you have if you have a bible, but don't worry if you don't.

Well, actually, do worry. Bring one next week. And, you'll see direct prophecies fulfilled. This is typical Luke. This is what you're doing, but it's sort of really gathered together in this one chapter.

Jesus is being crucified. And what Luke does, he records what is happening. Remember, look what is happening to show what was promised to show that it's fulfilled. So, in Isaiah, thousands of years before the incarnate son of god walked this Earth. Isaiah speaks of the suffering servant being numbered with the transgressors.

Luke, make sure you understand it was said back then, and it's happening now. He was between criminals. Psalm 22, thousands of years before Jesus walked this earth, it speaks about his hands and his feet being pierced even before that form of vile execution was even invented. His hands and his feet were pierced, Jesus was crucified. Psalm 22 again speaks of people dividing his clothing and casting lots at his feet.

Luke says that's exactly what happened. Psalm 69 speaks of vinegar being offered as a suffering servant. Luke says vinegar was offered him. Psalm 31 says that the Messiah will say into your hands, I commit my spirit. Luke records those very words from Jesus.

So, Isaiah 53 that the servant would pour out his life to save others. Luke says that's what he's doing on the cross. You see what he's doing? He's gone to eyewitnesses. Did this happen?

Did you hear these words? Did you see this? Well, let's look back at how he's fulfilling this whole story. Luke wants us to see that Jesus didn't just simply turn up with a new religion, that he makes sense of the whole story that's been around for centuries. Jesus is not an isolated event.

He is the climax of all of God's history. He's not a flash in the pan prophet. He is the one that everything's about. You can't compare him to any other prophet because all the prophets were saying look to Jesus and he's the one that's come. He fulfills all the prophecies.

He is the he is the root to all of the stories. And actually, those stories are rooted in humanity. So in nearly every culture, I think in every culture, you'll find something that hints at the story that we love. Why do we love films where there's a a savior, where some super person saves someone? Why do we love that redemptive story?

Why do we love stories about injustice and the one who brings injustice or evil is is dealt with? Why do we love that? Because it's rooted and it's saying Jesus is the fulfillment of all of those films, all of those stories because the story line in the Old Testament goes right back and every culture has picked up something of that. If you know the story of Genesis, we've been reading it some of us. At the Tower Of Babel, even though they were doing pagan things, God comes down, judges them, and he sends them out.

They're going out with something of the teaching of one God, something of the truth of what god's story is and it's rooted in every culture. You can find it in every culture, some redemptive story. It's all about Jesus. He's the fulfillment of all our desires and our hopes for a savior. That's what Luke's saying.

Fourthly then, an orderly account. Verse three again. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus. An orderly account, that's what he's written. Now I don't think that necessarily means he's writing strictly chronologically.

Don't think that's the case. But rather what he's doing is, he's putting together eyewitness fulfillment accounts in a way that flows, that makes sense, that builds the story. It's not just a hodgepodge of individual stories. And because we're preaching every week from this, we've got to be careful that we don't just isolate the stories. This isn't just a hodgepodge of stories about Jesus.

Do you remember last week I was showing you the Bayou Tapestry, and you could stop off at at little events, but actually there's a whole storyline running through it. And that's what and that's what Luke is. Of course, that's what the whole Bible is. So he's fashioned this together to engage your mind, to actually engage your imagination, which it does do, and actually, hopefully, move your heart. He's written this in that way.

Just as a doctor doesn't sort of put you through tests and examinations just to sort of academically have a look at your hip. It's not like, oh, yeah. Send him. Oh, yeah. What you got there is a, whatever it is, you know.

Yeah. It's not the the whole point of going to the doctor to look at your hip is to do something about it, to get a cure, to change you, to cut your leg off and stick a new one on. That's the whole point of it. Right? The the doctor I didn't go to the doctor for her just to say, now academically.

Now what you've got here is severe osteo whatever it is. And it's very interesting you know, because you know that the and I'd be thinking, one, that's strange because you are Indian origin and you are now talking like someone different. And this is just odd. It's not an act I'm a human, please. Luke doesn't just write this historically.

He writes it in an orderly way. What are you laughing at? He writes it in in an ordinary way. I'm sorry, brother. I said it was alright.

He writes it in an ordinary way so that we will go to doctor Jesus for the cure so that we see we need help, so that we'll be cured. So I have an equation. Do you wanna just stick up this slide? Here's my equation of Luke. Not that.

There. Got it? That's Luke in some kind of equation. There you go. Now what does that mean?

Well, putting everything together, I'm trying to say it means this, p plus e times f equals c. Everybody got it? Yes? P is predictions, the promises beforehand, plus eyewitnesses, those who are actually there. Times, the fulfillment, many fulfillments of the eyewitnesses of those predictions that Jesus actually fulfilled them.

Equals c, certainty. Certainty. Luke doesn't say, I can answer every question. He says, p plus e times f equals c, certainty. That's what he's telling us.

Now let me just have a few minutes applying that. You can take that off if you want. Let's have a first of all, I think Luke is trying to be very personal here. Notice he's writing to this bloke called Theophilus. Now there's all kinds of arguments, and you can read papers on it and vast volumes.

Was it just one person, or was it a group of people? Well, I don't know. But I think the point is in saying a name is he's trying to make it personal, whether it was a group of people or just one man called Theophilus. He wants that person or that group of people to personally take the certainty. Can you imagine Theophilus getting this book through Amazon?

You know, someone sent it to him, Luke's gospel, or he's unraveling the scroll. The excitement, the personal excitement that a well documented truth that he can be certain about has arrived. In in verse four, he's definitely writing to those who've already heard about the lord Jesus Christ. Verse four says, that you may know the certainty of things that you have been taught. So he's been taught these things.

He wants him to know these things or this group of people to know these things. Now, the word Theophilus, the name Theophilus means lover of God. And if you're a lover of God, you'll love these pages. You'll love what he's showing you certainly about Jesus. It it would be great because you're gonna find out about the real Jesus and not the one that we've made up in our fantasy.

You're gonna really get to know him. And if you want to be a lover of God, you really wanna love God, then it's worth reading. It's worth reading this book personally. Or if you wanna know why you should love God, then read the book, but it's personal. Open the letter.

Read it, whatever your name is. Read it, Theophilus. Read it. Look at it. It's a history written for you.

Wouldn't that be amazing? I mean, people go back, don't they, to find out their ancestors? If you found out your ancestors and you found a letter that was written to you by an ancestor two thousand years ago that wrote a letter saying, I'm writing to you. Wouldn't you read it? I was listening to, a program the other day as I was driving in.

The, people I I I have done this myself when I've put wallpaper up. I write mess I usually put the gospel up and then put the wallpaper on because I just think it would be great when they peel the wallpaper off. There's this, do you believe in God? You know, it's it's like, what you know? And I didn't realize other people did this, but apparently loads of people do this.

And there was this program where people were writing in, and they were peeling off the wallpaper. And there's all these types of things. My grandma died upstairs. You know? There was a bloody accident in the kitchen, and it's just sort of really, you know, and people are saying this effect.

If you saw a writing from the past that's seriously not just gathered randomly for you about life and god, it's personal. That's the first thing. Second thing, it's not fake news. Now I've said this already, but it's worth rubbing this in. We are living in a world of fake news.

This is not fake news. This is not a fake CV. This is not the descriptions of a very handsome man with a false picture on one of those those sites, where you couple up with someone. It's not, you know, then you meet them. They're completely different.

It's not like that. It's not fake news. It's not a scam. He's not trying to scam you with religion. There's nothing like that.

There's nothing about religion really other than he opposes it. He's interested in you. This is a god that is so interested in you. He's gonna tell you the facts, some facts you won't like, but he treats you with dignity. He's establishing a relationship.

There's an integrity here. He's gonna speak the truth kindly and lovingly. He's going to show you these things. This is not fake. It's not made up.

The people that say, I like to think Jesus is, are making him up. How dare they? This is the real thing. This is back to the eyewitnesses. This is the son of god that you can meet personally.

And he simply ask you read it. Look at it. Thirdly, trust. So personal, it's not fake news. The third thing I want to say is trust.

You can be certain that Jesus is trustworthy even though all your questions aren't answered. You can still trust there are questions that Christians can't answer. We can't. Sometimes you get Christians that sort of talk as if you can answer everything about suffering and predestination and free, and we can't. We can't.

There are passages in the Bible that we Christians will debate, and it's very hard sometimes to understand what it is saying. That's true. There are moments when things are confusing. There are prayers that don't get answered in the way that you hoped would be answered. There are tragedies that make you ask the question why.

But Christianity never promises to answer every you will never understand everything. But you don't have to understand everything to trust someone. Do you? I put my trust in my wife forty years ago. I said I will commit to you and she said she would commit to me.

I didn't know, did I? I didn't know. Didn't know much. But what I knew about her was worth making that promise and believing her promise to me, and it's proved to be true. We don't need to know everything.

We may not understand lots, but the facts here can enough to certainly help you trust in Jesus. Someone said this. This is always a hard thing to read this, but let me try and read it. Someone said this, I may not know why, but I do know why I trust the God who knows why. Alright.

Do you get that, Grace? Can you say it? No. I may not know why, but I do know why I trust the God who knows why. That's the Christian faith.

There's loads of things you can't answer, and we're not given the answer, or we can debate the answer. But there's enough here to trust. So read Luke. Don't just don't just be be a Christian because your parents were or it's the thing to do. That's just lazy.

And don't reject Christianity because everybody else does, and you've not looked into it. That's lazy too. Read it. Fourthly, look at Jesus. Get to know him.

As we go through Luke's gospel, watch what he does. Listen to what he says. Notice who he loves. Notice, who he confronts. Notice how he treats others.

Notice his claims about himself. Follow the story right to the cross and then through to the resurrection. And ask yourself, what am I gonna do with this man and his claims? Don't make Jesus up. Be surprised by him.

He will surprise you. If he doesn't, you've got a wrong Jesus. He sometimes is shocking and surprising, but think it through. Is he trustworthy? Are these certain?

What is he saying? Don't isolate Jesus either from the Old Testament. If he doesn't fit with the pictures of the Old Testament, you've not got the real Jesus. He has to fit with the whole story. Don't say I don't like Christianity.

I don't like churches. Christians have let me down. That is not the question. It's who is Jesus, and what are you gonna do with him? P plus e times f equals c.

Just one last point though. It works. This works. That's why a historian can say that Jesus has effect. We needed to see that Luke isn't giving us a placebo.

You know, you take something, you think it works. No. No. No. This is this is the real cure.

He will really save you from your sin and bring you into know God as father. It's not a placebo, but once you see that, you see it works. He works. He works. You can know God through him.

It works. He changes you. He changes your life. He gives you a future. He gives you hope.

He works. The cure works, and you can see that right the way down history. Luke's gospel. Let's get big with reading it. Let's bow our heads and pray.

Father, we thank you that as we come to your word and we just have sat under your word together, we are coming not just to a a collection of religious sayings or just to empty traditions passed down but that we are coming to a living word from the living God that has been carefully investigated and set down and put together in an orderly way so that we can know the certainty of the truths of who you are and what you've done and what the Lord Jesus has done for his people. And we do ask you please that you would help us to treat this book as that at a certain record of truth. And we thank you as well. We've been hearing that this is not just dead history. It is personally true for us.

This is true for each one of us. And we pray that you would help us please to be those who love you and those who listen to your word and trust it in our lives. Many of us here will will have experienced the truth of your word as we've trusted in you and as we've had the grace to live your way, we have known it to be true in our experience. And so we do ask you that as we carry on through Luke's gospel that you'd make us ever more convinced of the truthfulness of your word. And we pray in Jesus name.

Amen.