Lessons from the Book of Luke

Transcript

As many of you know, I just got back from Israel, and I thought I'd start out with one slide from my trip. We're going to be looking at lessons from the Book of Luke, not Luke particularly, but just a lot of the principles that come out of the Book of Luke. So, but a lot of what Luke writes about came from this area at the Sea of Galilee. And this photo is taken from a kibbutz that I stayed in, and it's sunset over the mountains there, over the Sea of Galilee. And Christ would have spent a lot of time in this area preaching. He would have spent a lot of time in this area thinking and healing and proclaiming that gospel message. And what a backdrop to do that in. When you're in this area, you get a sense I've always felt like Christ's ministry, it was very stressful for him, and I think that's an aspect of it. But I also think that Christ, with his capabilities, he would have been so calm by the environment that he was in from the standpoint of nature with sunsets and sunrises and being on the Sea of Galilee. And just taking all of this in to help calm his spirit, so to speak, at the end of a long day of preaching and healing and instructing. And this spot here is very close to where the Beatitudes would have been delivered from. And we know that multitudes sat down to listen to him, and they were saying, this man spoke like no one has ever spoke to us before. And some of those principles that are brought out in Luke and brought out in Matthew, in the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And that wonderful message of the gospel, whether poor and struggling financially, that gospel message holds a hope, whether it's poor, as he's talking here, just run down by the cares of life. The message of the gospel can build us up. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The idea that life carries with it, at times tremendous heartache.

The gospel message provides comfort, especially the message of the kingdom. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. This idea that through our discipleship, we should be in humility serving each other. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. That idea of being here this morning, being online, being a vessel to soak in these principles, so that we can then impart them to our coworkers, to our neighbors, to each other, to build each other up. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. This idea of forgiving our brother, seven times seven, or indefinitely, this idea of erring to the side of merciful, that there's no law against being merciful one unto another. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. Having a spirit that is easy to get along with, to be a peacemaker, to look for opportunities to bring people together. And one person that comes to mind is our brother Tom Cannon. He had a, and I was texting with Shana about this the other day when I was in Israel, because there were certain things that reminded me of him. And he had this wonderful spirit just to bring people together. He would say things, or he would make you think about something. But his character was just, he wanted to get along with everybody. And when you saw that in him, it kind of, it brought it out so that you thought, yeah, I want to be a little bit more like that, because that's the spirit of Christ, that idea of being a peacemaker. And it's interesting, Shana, you know, reaching out to Shana, sometimes it's hard to do, because it's a tough situation. And she's so appreciative of these stories. So if you have a story about Tom and something in the Bible reminds you, or, you know, we have Eastern Bible School coming up, if there's a story that reminds you of Tom, send her a message, because she loves to hear those stories, and it really does give her some joy. So just something to keep in mind. But that idea of blessed other peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. And that's one of the important parts of our discipleship, to be that calming spirit, to put forward those qualities that draw people in, rather than create walls that push people away. So with that backdrop, we're going to touch on those principles and more that are brought out in the Book of Luke. We're going to look at the account of Christ that Luke gives us, and the principles for our discipleship. The Book of Luke is one of the earliest accounts of Jesus' life. And most scholars believe it's part one of a unified two-volume work called Luke and Acts. So combining those two. And we can look at the opening verses from those books, and this is why they believe they were from the same author. We look at Luke chapter one, verses one through four. It says, inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. So Luke is saying, I wasn't an eyewitness, but I spoke to people who were eyewitnesses of these things, the individuals who spent time with Jesus, and now I'm going to write them down for you. He says, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent theophilist, so that you may know the exact truth about the things that you have been taught. So he's building this case that I've talked to everybody, I've investigated these things, and we know he was driven by the Holy Spirit to write what he wrote, but it wasn't without his own research to solidify that these things are true. And if we look at the beginning of Acts, verses one through three, it says, the first account I composed theophilist about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom he had chosen. To these, he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. So this idea that Luke spoke to the people who were in touch with Christ, all of these things were verified. And both of those openings, they somewhat ring overlapping in their tone and their conciseness. And so early tradition identifies the author as Luke, who was a doctor, and that gets into his writing style as well. In Colossians, it's brought out he looks to have been the traveling companion and coworker of Paul the apostle. Colossians 4, verse 14 tells us, Luke the beloved physician sends you his greetings and also Demas. So this idea of traveling together, working together. Philemon 1, verse 23 brings out, Paphras, my fellow prisoner, in Christ Jesus, greet you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow worker. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you in spirit. So we start to just have this theme very early on from Luke of this idea of working in the truth, working in the truth together. That it's a very active process that we do together. And this is brought out in Matthew, chapter 28, in verse 27, in verse 17, it says, and when they saw him, they worshiped him. This is talking about Christ after he was risen. But some wavered, and Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. So this idea of teaching nations, working together, as we saw in Colossians there, they were fellow workers in the Gospel, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. So this is the message that Christ delivered to the apostles, worked together, and above all, in that message that he delivered, that he's with us until the end of the world, or the end of the age, until his return, Christ will be with us. And that's the message that Luke wants us to, and Christ wants us to hold dear to our hearts today, that he is with us when we're breaking bread here this morning and listening to an excitation. Christ is among us. He's concerned about our lives. He's with us in the ups and downs of our lives, in the trials that we face, and the tribulations that we face, and the joys that we have. And yesterday at the West Aliyah Ecclesia, the topic was angels, and it was really interesting for me. I usually carry that topic like, yeah, we have angels that watch over us in our discipleship. And, but he really brought out to the forefront that we should be thinking about this, that the angels have a specific task, which is to guide us to the kingdom, and they work in our lives. They don't change our free will, but they're in touch with things that go on around us, and they can manipulate activities, but ultimately, we have to make the right choice. And Casey, when she was younger, she would always tell us, yeah, I always slept on one side of my bed because I made a little space for my angel. And, you know, we, of course, we thought that was cute, but it's just that idea that we should be mindful of not only Christ in our life, as he said, I'm with you. I'm with you until the end of, until I return, until the end of the Gentile age. And so are the angels, which created, that God used them to create this earth, and they're intricately involved in our lives. So this idea, you know, Christ will never leave us. We can do nothing by our own strength, with which Jim Sullivan, he's got that as his tag verse, and this idea of working together. And Jim's not here today, you might have noticed, because he's working for the community. He's giving an excitation for Echo Lake today, and it's a wonderful thing, and Jim's excited to do it.

And so he's taken on that idea of Christ is with me. I'm going to work for the brotherhood in the strength and the talents that I have, and it's a great example for all of us. And that's why we've been put into families. We've been put into ecclesias to build relationships, and Phil had put up the Happy Mother's Day, and it's a wonderful day. And the idea of mothers and families and guiding young children, it's such a critical part of our walk in discipleship, and that idea of being a mother, of being a mother in Israel, so to speak, of being a mother in the ecclesia, within the community, is so important, no matter what age we are. And the hugs my mom gives me, they don't change. Like they're the same as when I was 12. It's like that long, you know, firm, you know, I love you. You're my son. I care about you. And it's a wonderful, I'll say example, but it's also, I think that's how Christ feels about us. That's how God feels about us. He's got his arms wrapped around us. He understands the difficulties and the challenges that we go through, and it's that warm embrace that he has for us. And we get a picture of this camaraderie and this idea of working together. Christ didn't send the disciples out by themselves. He sent them out in pairs, at a minimum. And we know that working together with someone, whether it's at a project, at work, you know, most of the time it's easier working, you know, with somebody. Sometimes somebody drags behind, right? But that's where working together in that idea of being joined to somebody, it brings out a more fruitful end result. Two people are more effective than a single person in accomplishing the work of preparing people's hearts for the kingdom of God and the good news about Jesus. And this principle is brought out in Ecclesiastes, chapter four. It says, two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them. And we've all experienced that in life when we've been down. And that right person calls us, they're in tune with our emotions, and we get that phone call or that, you know, hey, can I talk to you for a minute? And they build us up. They say just what we need to hear to get us back on that road to recovery. Get us back on that road where, you know what, this is going to pass, you know, next week and the week after. It's going to be better than the way things are before. It's so critical for us to develop these relationships. Ephesians tells us in chapter four, be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. And so it's this idea of being joined, being supportive, humble and gentle. And I saw a quote that said, the time to teach someone to swim is not when they're drowning. And how true is that, right? I mean, and I know for me, sometimes that's my natural instinct, like with my kids, they do something and I want to be like, listen, what are you doing? It should be this way. But now I'm able to take a step back and say, you know, that's the time to give them that gentle support and to show that humility and to just talk to them about what they're feeling. The time for instruction will come. The time for, you know, giving that lesson will be down the road. But it's not always while someone's going through that difficulty of life. And the Psalms brings out, you know, it's not just this idea of, you know, we want to make it work, but it's this really, this idea of enjoying the process. Psalms tells us how good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity, right? And this can be a challenge, but when we're all on the same page exhibiting those qualities, it makes it so much smoother and easier to implement these principles. You know, one of the things that I thought of when I was thinking about teamwork, and I see Steve there, you know, Steve does a lot of bike riding. And he does the Pan-Mass Challenge every year, which is coming up in August. And if you go on the Pan-Mass Challenge, like their initial statement, it says, people come together from all corners of the world to raise funds for cancer research and treatment. And it's a wonderful thing that they do, but it reminded me of what we do, right? We come together from all around the world to raise each other's spirits, to preach the gospel, to build each other up, to essentially heal up the brokenhearted. But beyond that, the one with cycling, and I'm not going to say which one Steve does, but drafting in cycling is a technique where you ride behind. We've all probably seen this on the road, or you see it with 18-wheelers. The cyclist rides close behind the other to reduce the wind resistance, saving energy and allowing for faster speeds. The rider in front creates a wind shadow that reduces drag for the rider behind them. And so you'll watch these riders kind of, they go back and forth. When one rider is feeling pumped up, they're in the front, and the other guy is very close behind, getting a break, so to speak. The rider in front creates a low-pressure area behind them, which provides a draft that the following rider can ride in, reducing the effort required to maintain speed. So they can keep up with the speed that they need to be at. And it says that drafting can reduce the amount of energy needed by 30 to 40 percent. And so by reducing the drag, you can keep up, you can stay in the race, so to speak, and it's a key tactic that riders use, particularly in group rides, to conserve energy so they have energy for those crucial moments. So it's almost like a biblical principle, because when you're strong and I'm weak, I can be built up by you. If I come into the Ecclesia Hall, and it's been a tough week, but then Brother Paul gets up there, and he's got his energy, and he's ready to go, well, then I leave here feeling like, hey, I'm, you know, rejuvenated.

Yeah, go ahead, Chris. Yeah, just another visual, in case we don't have a chance to take in a bicycle race or something, is sometimes you'll look up and see a flock of birds, and you'll all of a sudden see one bird from the back of the flock, you know, fly to the front and take the lead, and how they fly in a wedge, you know, and that's the same thing. They're drafting, okay, making it easier for the others, especially if they have to migrate long periods. So once in a while, you look up, and you get that encouragement. Yeah, thank you for that, Chris. Appreciate it. So, yeah, this idea of just being there for each other, because we know the hills and valleys that naturally come with just the experience of life. A little bit about Luke, he was a physician, which means healer, and I think we see that principle in Christ, where he had the power to heal. He probably obtained his medical education in Tarsus, a school which, at that time, rivaled those of Alexandria and Athens. It may have been there that he first met Saul, so there's this idea that they had a tie-in. At that time, where Paul was at the knees of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, which is brought out, they at least had the opportunity to probably meet while he was becoming a physician. For Saul was a native of the town. He was a Roman, a citizen by birth, while Luke attained that dignity with his profession, and this is from the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. At this time, they did have a medical board, but there wasn't really licensing exam, so to speak, they qualified healers, which dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, around 2000 BCE. The Code of Hammurabi, which you may have heard of, included specific laws about medical practice, though they were a bit dramatic then today. I mean, you know physicians have, they need to have insurance in case something goes wrong, but back then if a patient died and you were the physician, they might cut your hands off, so it was pretty high stakes back at this time. But it was just, we do see in our society today a little bit of a return back to some of these natural remedies, and some of the natural remedies, which is probably going to be looking around Pembroke for some of these later on today, arthritis or headaches, they would chew willow bark, so you go find a willow tree, get some willow bark. For ulcers and lung issues, mental relaxants, they had pomegranates to lower blood pressure, which is publicized today. An ancestor of lemon and lime, you would put on the skin to remove wrinkles, I mean obviously I'm using that.

That and going in the Dead Sea, that's what I tell Jen, you want me to keep looking good, I've got to go to Israel, got to get in the Dead Sea, the salt's down there. Let's see, what else did they have? And it was referred to as nature's medicine chest, so all of these kind of natural remedies, which are making a little bit of a comeback I think today. Hair of a goat wrapped around the head was for a migraine, I'd like to see that on somebody. But this idea that we're actually told that Luke is a physician, his writing style, he uses the classical form of Greek, which is intended, it's a kind of a higher form of writing, which was to give his writing kind of legitimacy, not only to at this time higher class people, but also the whole world in general, that okay, we have a physician here, he's writing, he's acknowledging these things.

So it was just an indicator that he was at the very highest levels of education at this time in society. Luke 9.1 tells us, which I think is very interesting, because this idea of being a physician, it seemed to me that following Christ would be very enticing, because you have this idea of healing with the gospel message, but also this power to heal. It says in Luke 9 verse 1, then he called his 12 disciples together and gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases. And I think this would have intrigued Luke, and he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick, and he said unto them, take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor script, neither bread, neither money, neither have two coats apiece.

So this idea of not only bringing words of comfort, words of gentleness that soothe, but also these miracles, which were needed at the time to totally transform the planet, to totally transform the way people thought about healing and the message of the gospel. We've got these dramatic healings happening, people being raised, sight being restored, people that can walk now, and then we have this incredible message that goes hand in hand that we have this messiah, we have this savior that is going to bring equality to all people, that's going to raise up the broken hearted, that's delivering a message that's not just for those in elite places, it's for everybody from the least to the greatest. We're all God's children, and this was the message that Christ was bringing forth. And these principles are brought out in Psalms in a beautiful way, Psalms chapter 30, it says, O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.

Psalm 103, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases. So the marrying of these two, healing our soul from the effects of sin and death, ultimately in the kingdom with eternal life, but healing diseases at this time to show that the power was there to bring about a kingdom, the power was there to transform, as it says to go on in that verse, who redeems your life from the pit, the same power that raised Lazarus, this power that raised Christ, who crowned you with steadfast love and mercy. What could be produced in the people at this time from seeing these things? What can be produced in us from reading about these things that are true and right? Well, it heals us. We don't have that physical healing, so to speak. I think the words of Scripture are very calming, and they're finding that more and more you are what you think. If you think you're going to have a bad day, well, you're going to tend to have a bad day. But if you nudge yourself up in the morning, today's going to be a great day. The sun is shining. What can I accomplish today? This is going to be a good day, and if we, through empathy and care for other people, it's hard to complain when you're serving somebody else. And this idea of the mind being a wonderful tool that we can use in a positive sense, and there's so much current knowledge about how we can use the mind to be successful, and I think that's brought out here as well by saying positive things. Michael Phelps, who is a world-class swimmer, I can't remember how many gold medals he has, but one of the things that he would do, he suffered from depression, and one of the things that he would do, every time he walked under a doorway, he would say a positive affirmation to himself. Positive affirmation, that continual of rewiring his brain to say, no, today's going to be a good day. I'm not going to listen to these negative thoughts. I'm going to be about positivity. So Christ, ultimately, he will redeem our lives, whether it be at the resurrection, whether it be if we are alive and remain at his coming, he is going to redeem our lives and provide us with an immortality,

where we can't even imagine the experience we're going to have when we are crowned, as it says, with steadfast love and mercy in these new immortal beings. Psalms 107 says, he sent out his word and healed them. That idea we've been talking about, the healing words of Scripture, that it gives us hope. It puts us in that positive frame of mind. It, in a way, creates that drag effect. Christ is on that head. He's ahead of us, creating that drag where we can keep up and our walk in the truth. It says, he sent out his word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love. He's delivered us from destruction. We all know that feeling, where we can feel hopeless, but when we think of the Gospel, when we think about what Christ has done in that steadfast love, that idea that Christ will never leave us until the end of this age, the end of the Gentile age, and that there's going to be a glorious age to come with a righteous ruler. Those words are like dynamite in our lives. They cheer us up. They build within us a spirit of attainability, that we can do this through Christ. Now, there's a lot of records of healing in Luke. We have in Luke 7, Jesus heals the servant of the centurion. He just speaks a word. He says the word, and the centurion is healed. There's really a big tie in there between the physical healing and the idea of the word, the words of Jesus healing us. He raised the son of the widow from death. We have two more classes, so we'll be able to get into some of these things. Luke chapter 8, Jesus heals a demon-possessed man and then raises a young girl from death. In Luke 8, Jesus heals a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years and raises Jarius' daughter from death. Luke chapter 4 tells us, now when the sun was setting, just like in that picture in Galilee, I always got to bring it back to my trips to Israel. It says, all they that had any sick, so they knew this about Jesus, with diverse diseases brought them unto him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. It was like so much healing was going on. Yes, we have specific incidents of when Jesus healed, but this is just like a blanket thing. Everybody they brought, so many people with different diseases, and it just brings out this idea that the gospel is for everybody. Christ is going to return and heal a broken world, not just for everyone in this room, but everybody on this planet. Everybody from the poorest country to the wealthiest country. That message is going to go out from Jerusalem of healing, of

support, and of the opportunity to accept Jesus as the Messiah. It goes on to say in that chapter, after Christ healed all these people, it says, and when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place, and the people sought him and came unto him and stayed him, that he should not depart from him. I mean, they're seeing all this miraculous healing. They didn't want him to leave. They didn't want this experience to end. But what did Christ say to them? He said to them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent. And he preached in the synagogue of Galilee. So yes, the physical healing. But they came to him, probably with more sick people, and Christ said, this is wonderful, but I must preach the gospel to other cities also. That's why I'm here, so that this gospel message can

make its way throughout every generation, so that it can make it here to us in 2025. I have to stay true to my mission, which is to preach. And he went to preach in the synagogue in Galilee, which is still there today, by the way.