If you can turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 1, we're going to be looking at Luke. Okay, Luke chapter 1. Sorry. Our brother Luke, is he here? When he was in junior high school, I probably said that about 100 times and he loved it every time. I don't know if he's here today.

Luke chapter 1, I'm going to be reading from verses 1 through 4. As much 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, 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 Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.

Let's pray. Gracious Father, we pray for your continued mercy. Help us, Lord God, to glean from your word what you have intended, that your word that's living and active would cause us, Lord God, to be judged in our heart, to find encouragement, to find strength and greater hope, to know Christ, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and the hope that we have in all the promises that he's given.

I pray that as we begin this new series, help us, Lord God, to understand the proper foundation so that it would help us, Lord, to see what it is that you have for us here. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And I've been kind of sharing with you, I've been going back and forth on which book to cover, and I've always kind of leaned toward Luke, and the reason why I couldn't commit is because Luke's writing in the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts covers about 25 to 30% of the whole New Testament.

So I knew that once we started this that we're going to be here probably until I retire, right? So it's going to be a while, so I wanted to make sure that we're going to jump into this. And I haven't decided that after we finish this book that we're going to jump into Acts.

I am hoping that we can. I'm not sure exactly how many years we'll be here in the book of Luke, but I wanted to give you some background information, and today is going to be a little bit more informational than you may be used to, but I think this background information is necessary so that once we start jumping into the text and going to the narrative in Jesus' life, it will make more sense to you and you know what to catch and what to look for.

Just to kind of give you a background on Luke, Luke was Paul's very close companion. Typically when we think of Apostle Paul, we think of Timothy, but Luke, according to 2 Timothy 4, 9-11, at the very end of his life when he was waiting to be executed, Paul says, "Everybody has left me except for Luke." Let me read what it says, 2 Timothy 4, 9-11.

"Make every effort to come to me soon, for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service." So we know that Luke was not just any companion.

Not that anybody that's mentioned here is just anybody, but as people were beginning to drop out from his companions, and these are very faithful men that are mentioned, many of them mentioned in the book of Acts, he says Luke was with him to the very end. Now you have to understand, Luke being with Paul to the very end meant that he himself had to risk his life to be there.

Because knowing that they claimed Paul to be an insurrectionist, that anybody who was tied to him, they would have also considered to be dangerous. So the fact that Luke was with him to the very end, we already know the character of this man. He is very committed to what he believes and risks his life and his health along with the other apostles and other companions.

He is a physician by trait. Colossians 4.14, Apostle Paul makes that very clear, that Luke the physician sends you greeting and also Demas. In other words, he's a medical missionary. Typically when we think of the apostles and especially as they are going out and doing ministry and presenting the gospel, they had ability to perform miracles.

Remember what Jesus said to the apostles? He said, "After I leave, the Holy Spirit's going to come. You're going to do much greater work than what you've seen with me because of the Holy Spirit." And we see that in the book of Acts, the power of the apostles wherever they went.

But having said that, we may naturally think that since they have power, that everywhere they went, they just kind of knock people over and perform miracles every single day, which was not the case. Remember Paul says to Timothy not to neglect, to drink a little bit of wine because he was having stomach problems.

He didn't just lay his hands and then healed him and went. He didn't just walk down the street and people just falling out and was fine. Those things were specifically reserved for a particular purpose. So to have a physician who was walking with you in these missionary journeys, and you can see how useful that must have been for Apostle Paul to travel with them, having stomach problems and diarrhea, whatever that comes with traveling.

The fact that they had a physician with them was very helpful. And I'm just guessing that there's a lot of things that God used that was already within the people that God used for that purpose. And again, Luke being a physician was very helpful. Him being a physician, he has a unique perspective of Jesus' life and certain things that he highlights, which we'll get to in a minute.

But before we do that, again, as I said, it's helpful for us to understand the distinction between these Gospels. Obviously we have four Gospels. Of the four, the first three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called synoptic Gospels. And the reason why they're called synoptic Gospels is because so much of the material and the events that are recorded in the first three books are similar.

Much of it is repeated in these three Gospels. That's why it's called the synoptic Gospels. And then the Gospel of John, almost 80% of what's written in the Gospel of John is unique to John. And so that too, but the reason why they weren't put together is because they wanted to keep the synoptic Gospels together.

Then why didn't they start with John and then say Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then Acts? Well the reason why they put Matthew in the front is because Matthew's Gospel clearly connects Jesus as a fulfillment of the prophecy in the Old Testament. So the genealogy in the book of Matthew connects Jesus to the Old Testament, so they wanted to make sure that Matthew was put in the front.

And by doing so, Luke and Acts were separated, and John came in the middle. God uses particular personalities, and you could see that specifically in the Gospels, where even though the author is the Holy Spirit, their personalities and their imprint of who they are is clear in the Gospel.

So let's look at the book of Matthew. Our point is not to get too deep into Matthew, but I think it'd be helpful for us. Who is Matthew? He's one of the apostles. What was he by trade? He was a tax collector. So if he's a tax collector, what does he have to be good at?

Some of you are engineers who are good at spreadsheets. I've never used Excel in my life. I know that sounds weird to you, but I've opened it, but I've never used it in my life. I have no use for it. I don't know why they invented it. I would have been a lousy tax collector because I would have collected too much or too less.

But a tax collector has to be a good record keeper. So if you remember in Luke chapter 2, there's a census that takes place, so all the people had to go back to their hometown to take the census. And that's why Jesus and Mary and Joseph would have to go back to Bethlehem because they had to be counted.

But the reason why they had to be counted was for tax purposes. So the person that would have kept the census or had to have a good record of their genealogy would have been who? Matthew, among the apostles. So God uses that record keeping ability. And so already you can kind of tell just by who's writing this what may be emphasized in the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew has more quotations of the Old Testament in that Gospel than any other Gospel. And it starts out with his genealogy because the purpose of the genealogy is to connect Jesus as the fulfillment of the promise that God made, the covenant that he made with Israel, and that the seed of the woman is going to come, and that Jesus is that seed of the woman.

And so over and over again the theme in the Book of Matthew is that Jesus is that Messiah. He's the King. So you can already tell Matthew's emphasis thematically is the record keeping to clearly demonstrate that Jesus is the fulfillment of these prophecies. Mark, he's not a prophet. He's not an apostle.

Do you remember who Mark was? Mark was Barnabas's either cousin or a nephew. And he was part of Apostle Paul's first missionary journey. But as the persecution started rising, Mark just backslid and he fell out. So by the time they get to Lystra, they're doing ministry, and Mark just disappears.

So Apostle Paul comes back and then they're starting to collect people for the second missionary journey. And Barnabas and Paul had such a sharp disagreement about Mark that Barnabas ends up taking Mark and he goes off and does his own missionary journey. And then Apostle Paul picks up his disciple and then they go and they separate.

That's all we hear about Mark in the Book of Acts. But we know throughout the rest of scripture that Mark, by Paul's own admission, says he became a very useful person in the ministry. We know that Mark was a personal assistant of Apostle Paul. So Gospel of Mark most likely was accounts that he heard from Peter.

Did I say Paul? Sorry, Peter. Right? Sometimes things fly out of my mouth. I'm not sure what I said. Okay. He's a personal assistant of Apostle Peter. Did I say Paul? I said Paul. Okay. You got to filter what I say. Okay? Because sometimes the filter doesn't work here, so you got to filter over there.

Okay. Clearly I meant Peter. Right? Peter was an apostle of Peter. And so most likely Mark's account, even though he was not an eyewitness, much of it came through Apostle Peter. So if the account that Mark's giving are things that he probably learned from Mark, Peter, you can see Peter's imprint in the Gospel of Mark.

What was Peter known for? Putting his foot in his mouth. He was a man of action. He did first, and then he calculated later. He's a measure once, cut twice type of guy. Right? He just did it. So he's the guy, he's like, "Oh Jesus, is that you? Let me come out to the water." Right?

He said, "I'm going to go to the cross." "You can't go. How dare you?" And he rebukes Jesus. He's a man of action. Right? So Mark's account of Jesus's life is filled with action. In fact, Mark's Gospel is known as the Goal Gospel. Because as soon as the Gospel account starts, boom, he gets into his miracles.

There's one miracle after another miracle after another miracle. And that's a reflection of Apostle Peter that Mark was taking his things from. John, an apostle, what was he known for? John was a hothead. Right? Remember in Jesus's ministry, John and James, those two brothers are called sons of thunder.

And it's not because they were superheroes. Right? They're called sons of thunders because they had a hot temper. Remember they were walking through Samaria and they wouldn't help them. So remember what John and James said? "Shall I call out God's judgment and kill these people?" Right? And he would have been a mass murderer if Jesus didn't stop them.

So they were called sons of thunder because they're quick-tempered. And the other thing that John and James is known for, remember when Jesus was going to the cross and he repeatedly told them that he's going to be crucified? Remember John and James, they pulled Jesus aside and said, "Okay, okay.

You're going to die. I get it. Right? But can I sit on your left and to your right?" And here's my mom. My mom actually wants to talk to you too. And can I sit on your left or to your right? So in the midst of pursuing Christ and being his disciple, in the back of their mind, and all the disciples were guilty of this, but in particular these two guys went out of their way to kind of like, "What am I going to get out of it?" So that apostle, those two apostles, right?

And John is one of those apostles. What are they known for in the New Testament? What does John know for the apostle of love? This mass murderer. This hothead, the sons of thunder meets Christ after the resurrection and he repents and this hothead, this man filled with passion and that hatred and self-seeking turns into apostle of love.

So there's more mention about love of Christ, love of brothers in his gospel and in his epistle than any other writing. But what is also interesting was apostle John was known for self-seeking. Remember at the end of his life, like, "Let me sit on the left, let me sit on the right." The whole gospel of John is to rebuke the nation of Israel who was seeking Christ out for their own gain.

And so it is right in the smack dab in the middle of John's gospel is organized by the seven "I am" statements. I am the bread of life, I am the light, I am the good shepherd, I am the door, I am the way, the truth, and I am the resurrection, I am divine.

And so these seven "I am" statements basically takes religious people who are seeking Christ for their own personal gain that maybe if I go to Jesus I can get bread. Maybe if I go to Jesus I can become somebody. And he says Jesus is. He is the destination. It is not through him that I am going to be exalted, it is Christ himself that we are seeking.

And it is relevant because that is exactly who John was before the resurrection. So if you read the book of John, his personality and his repentance is scattered all throughout the book of John. Everything that he says through the book of John are things he had to learn. So his personality is imprinted in that gospel where God is exalted as deity and we are just people who are coming.

Luke obviously is a physician and as a physician he emphasizes Jesus' humanity. As he focuses on Jesus' humanity there is more details about Jesus' birth than any other gospel. He actually comes with a bunch of stuff in there that you don't hear in any other gospel. It may be the same account but he gives more detail than any other gospel.

It's the only gospel that has any mention of his childhood. All the other gospels, Jesus is born, John the Baptist appears and he runs into ministry. But this is the only gospel where we see a preteen Jesus at the temple and we get a small glimpse of what it was like to raise the son of God.

And the gospel of John is the only gospel that has any mention of his childhood. There is specifics of that. There is more interaction with lost people in the gospel of Luke. Meaning that if you look at the other gospels it's thematically organized so it tells us this is what Jesus does and then it proves his identity.

It proves that he is deity. And so those things are emphasized but because Luke's gospel emphasizes his humanity there is more detailed information about his interaction with them. He didn't just heal and just move on. There's a lot of conversations that take place. There's people that he interacts with that's not mentioned in the other gospels.

So there's more detailed interaction with lost people in the gospel of Luke. When you remember the story of Gethsemane, this is the gospel where it's emphasized where Luke the physician describes his prayer as his sweat turning into blood. There's more specific descriptions of his suffering on the cross in this gospel than any other gospel.

Which makes sense because he was a physician. There's more medical terms that are used in the gospel of Luke in the book of Acts than any other gospel. He's an educated man and as an educated man his Greek was much more advanced than the other apostles. In fact most of the New Testament is written in Koine Greek.

The common use of Greek at that time in the secular world was classical Greek. Koine Greek was unique to that period and particular regions where especially for the Jews they use Koine Greek. I think the best way for me to describe Koine Greek is some of you speak two languages, and if you speak Chinese and English and you have some maybe at home you speak Chinglish, or if you're Korean and English you speak Conglish, and so there's unique words that you kind of jumble up that's unique and only people who can speak Conglish understand certain things that you say.

So I think the best way to describe it is Koine Greek isn't scholarly Greek. It's more for specific like talking. It's not the kind of Greek that you would use to have scholarly things written. It was more for communication. Majority of the New Testament is written in the Koine Greek.

Luke writes the Gospels in classical Greek, majority of it in classical Greek, because he's writing it for another reason. There is a debate whether Luke is Gentile or not, and most people believe that he is, but whether he is or he is not Gentile, everybody agrees that the book of Luke was most likely written for Gentiles, that this is the gospel that you probably don't need to have a rich history of Old Testament prophets and things like that to understand everything that's going on in the book of Luke, because he's writing it for a Greek audience, Theophilus, and so he's known as the Gentile writer for the gospel of Luke.

Whether he is or he is not, at least the audience is, that's clear. Now how does that help us? It doesn't mean that the other parts aren't helpful to us. The other gospels are helpful because it connects us with the Old Testament and the prophets as a continuity. The gospel of Luke is written specifically for people who may not have understood all the customs and traditions and the Jewish laws, and he's trying to explain to them historically what has happened.

Luke's gospel has more details about his female disciples than any other gospel. In today's age, okay, that's helpful, but you have to understand at that period, it would have been scandalous. They would have read that as like, "What? Jesus had female disciples? How can that be?" Remember when Jesus is going through Samaria, that he ends up talking with a Samaritan woman, and the Samaritan woman is actually concerned for him.

He says in John 4, 9, "Therefore the Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?'" Not only is she a Samaritan, she happens to be a woman, and even as a Samaritan woman, she was an adulterous woman.

Not only was he a Jew, he was a rabbi. So these two would have never interacted. In fact, a Jewish rabbi wouldn't be seen in Samaria. But the fact that he was there, a Jewish holy man, talking to a scandalous Samaritan woman, would have been a cause of a lot of rumors and finger-pointing, maybe even disqualifying him as a holy man.

That's why she says, "You're a Jewish man talking to me in broad daylight?" Now compare that to John chapter 3, when Nicodemus comes to see Jesus. Nicodemus comes to him at night because he's concerned what his friends are going to think of him. So he has to sneak around and ask him in private because he's concerned about his reputation.

There's a reason why chapter 3 and chapter 4 are right next to each other. Because it was introducing, like, Jesus humbles the proud and he raises the humble. And so the Gospel of Luke, there's an emphasis and exposition of the female disciples that we don't see, or more details.

Whether there's Mary Magdalene or Joanna or Susanna, they're mentioned in the Gospel of Luke in detail. In fact, the genealogy that is placed in the Gospel of Luke, whose genealogy is that? Is through Mary. You have to understand, at that time, they didn't even count the females. So when they took a census, when they said there was a certain number of people, that was the certain number of men in that society.

So when we typically think about, there's Jesus fed 5,000, we'll always qualify that in our cultural context as most likely 5,000 men, which means the typical number that you kind of see thrown around in the commentaries is somewhere around 20,000 plus, even though it says 5,000 because women and children were not counted in this.

So when they said 5,000, or when they fed 4,000, it could have been 20,000, it could have been 25,000, the way we would count numbers. So again, it may be sexist or however our generation may call that, that's how it was in the early church. That was the culture, that was naturally what they would have accepted.

So to have a genealogy to go through the mom would have been unheard of. We understand genealogy in Matthew, but the genealogy in Luke itself, a Jew would read that and say, "Ah, this guy could be the Messiah." And there's more details about his interaction with females and his disciples in this gospel than any other gospel.

More interacting with outcasted people, downcast, who had no voice. So he was a strange rabbi. He was a guy that even after performing all of these miracles would have shook the ground of the Pharisees and Sadducees and other religious leaders and the scribes simply because he paid attention to people who had no voice.

He spent a lot of time with them, healing them, had them as disciples. In fact, when Jesus is headed toward the cross and when all the men scatter, where are the females still serving? They're at the cross, at the foot of the cross. When Jesus is resurrected, who are the first ones that run over there?

It's the females. See, to us that may not mean much, but for people at that time, if you're trying to make up something and validate something, that would have been the worst thing to do. Only reason why you would even record that is because that's exactly what happened. So when they come back and they tell the disciples, remember the disciples?

It's like these women are saying that they saw the resurrected Christ and Christ is not there. It's like, the women are saying that. They have to go check for themselves because women's testimonies at that time were easily discounted. They weren't taken seriously. But Luke's gospel blows that out of the water.

Typically in our generation, people have accused conservative Christians, Bible-believing Christians of being sexist, misogynist, because we believe in male headship in our church because that's what the Bible teaches. But in reality, if you look at Christianity, Jesus is the one who kicks the door open to the females, who give value.

The reason why the whole culture in Judeo-Christian culture has changed is because of what Jesus has done. Exactly the opposite of what they are accusing us of today. And that's recorded in the gospel of Luke. Jesus is presented to us in the gospel of Luke as a sympathetic high priest.

Jesus has three offices, the king, the prophet, and the priest. So obviously Matthew's gospel is specifically emphasized in Jesus as the king. When you have a good king, you have peace. You have prosperity. There's stability. There's justice. There's order when you have a good king. And so Jesus is presented as the king of a new kingdom, his kingdom.

And that's the gospel of Matthew. Jesus also is a prophet, and a prophet is sent forth to represent God. He says whatever God tells him to say. So when you have a righteous and faithful prophet, you have revival. People repent. They come. They get reconciled to God. But a priest makes a house a home because he's the one who stands in between the sinner and a holy God, who is sympathetic to those who are weak, who represents a holy God, and he stands in the middle to reconcile people.

And that's why the Bible says that we have a sympathetic high priest who understands our suffering. And so he invites us, because he is sympathetic, and he's opened the door to come to the throne of grace with confidence so that we may find help in time of need. So this sympathetic high priest is presented to us in the gospel of Luke, standing between people who feel like they are not worthy, people who don't have a voice, people who feel like they've been discounted, people who've suffered.

He stands in the middle, and he represents a holy, holy, holy God, and invites us into his kingdom. That's the gospel of Luke. This is a powerful, powerful gospel. I'm not saying that any other gospel is not powerful. But the more we understand the details of what it said, we can easily read the gospel and say, "Oh, I know this story.

I've read this story. I've heard a sermon in this." But the more superficially we read it, the more superficial the application. And part of the reason why I'm giving all of these details is because when we start to jump in and go through, dissect all of this, that you don't read it like, "I know this.

I studied this. I read the commentary." Luke himself describes why and how he wrote the gospel in the first four verses. So let me, again, read a couple of verses here so that we can highlight, again, and this will help us explain the background information, Luke chapter 1, 1 through 4, "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who are from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, 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 Theophilus." Just the first three verses alone is radically different than the other gospels because he presents it like a term paper, right, like a historian.

He's not just getting a bunch of facts and information that he heard and just compiling it and it's like, "Here it is." He says, "Systematic, consecutive investigation that I'm presenting to you." That's what he says. Now you have to remember, he says he went and investigated eyewitnesses. You have to remember, at that time, by the time that he was writing this, all these eyewitnesses were still alive.

So if he's making this up, and we're not talking about two people, we're not talking about three people, hundreds of people. In 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 8, it says, "For I delivered to you as a first important what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scripture and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

After that, he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time." Let me stop right there. Remember how they counted people at that time? It says 500. It may be way more than 500. It may be in the thousands. The number 500 is used here, and that's a number we normally repeat, but the way they took census, it could have easily been more than that.

He says, "He showed himself to them, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. A few of them have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James and to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also." This is Apostle Paul speaking.

So if Luke is commissioned by a Roman official, a Gentile, a physician to go and accurately report and he says, "I'm going to find all these eyewitnesses firsthand, and I'm going to jot it down in consecutive order to present to you exactly what has happened." If he's making this up, there's, again, I think the accurate number may be in the thousands.

Could have easily said, "That's not true." Anybody could have said, "Well, where are these eyewitnesses?" Right? 500, I mean, there must have been. I mean, he walked around for many, many days. There must have been a lot. And that's exactly what was said, a bunch of them. He left eyewitnesses of his resurrection.

And Luke went and discovered. Now you have to remember at that time, in order for you to travel and find all these people, you have to have time, you have to have money, you have to have resources. If Luke was commissioned by a high Roman official under his protection, possibly with his support, what does that tell you?

Probably more than any other gospel. He had the time, he had the resources. And if the office says, "Where do you need to go?" "I need to go to Rome." And he said, "Well, Apostle Paul just got beheaded. Don't worry, I got you." You go, "Under my protection." So I don't know exactly if that happened, but if Theophilus commissioned him to do that, and he said, "I'm going to take a careful account to get the record of the eyewitnesses that Luke's account is very accurate." In fact, people who have tried to discount Christianity targeted specific Luke's writing because Luke himself says that everything he says is historically accurate.

So people throughout the centuries who were hostile toward Christianity said, "If I can disprove Luke's writing that historically it's made up, that it doesn't exist, there are certain places that he mentions that only is mentioned in Luke's writing, and if I can dig up enough of that and prove to you that it doesn't exist, wouldn't that prove that other things that Luke is saying is also false?" The most famous of these antagonists was a guy named Sir William Ramsey, was a historian archaeologist.

And he set out to disprove Christianity as a whole, but his method was to target Luke's writings, especially in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. After a lifetime of digging and trying to prove that it was wrong, he became a Christian. And the reasoning why he became a Christian was, he said, "I can't believe that a doctor, a physician, a historian would take this kind of effort to make everything historically archaeologically accurate, even the sickness, to be medically accurate, and then to be lying about the main thing he's talking about." He said, "Reasonably, it doesn't make any sense." In fact, most Christians and non-Christians agree that Luke's writing is one of the most historically accurate.

Whether you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ or not, they say it's one of the most historically accurate documents of that period that we have, period, Christian or non-Christian. And that's exactly what Luke says that he is setting out to do. He's going to take painstaking time and effort to make sure that everything he's writing to you is accurate.

So because of that, he said, "Most likely, he's the most chronologically accurate." Now, it doesn't mean that everything that he says happened one right after the other. There isn't clear agreement on that. But one thing we do know, in my opinion, he made sure that his second book was chronological.

There's no debate in the book of Acts. It's clear what he is saying is consecutive and it's chronological. So to me, if he took that kind of time to make sure that the second book is chronological, it makes sense that the first book was also, at least a strong effort was made to make it chronological.

So whenever today we try to find out when did this happen, what was Jesus' timeline, when did this miracle happen, usually the first book that we would go for chronology is the book of Luke. Now, having said all of that, all of these things are what he says. It's like this is how he put it together.

Why he put it together, he mentions in the verse four. He says, "So that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught." To confirm, theophilus, we don't know exactly who he is. We know that he is a Gentile, possibly a Roman high official. His name means beloved of God or a lover of God.

He may have been a recent convert who wanted to confirm and find more information, or he may have just seen what's been going on. Christianity by this time has rocked the world. In about a 20 to 25 year span, this is written somewhere, most people agree, somewhere around AD 60.

So in about 20, 25 years of after Jesus' death and resurrection, that the whole world at that time, we're not just talking about that local area, the whole world got rocked. And all of a sudden you had Jews and Gentiles who hated each other. They couldn't even be in the same city because they felt like it was unclean.

All of a sudden, Christ takes away the barrier and they become one. They call each other brothers and sisters in Christ. Tax collector. I mean, tax collectors were considered vilest of the vilest in the Jewish community. He becomes one of the leaders and he's teaching Pharisees in a church, calling him brothers and sisters in Christ.

We had runaway slaves and the former slave master calling each other brothers and worshiping together. You had the rich and the poor. You had adulterers and then you had people who got treated, I mean, the whole world got rocked upside down. The Alpha is probably watching all of this and saying, "What happened?" I remember Dr.

Harris years ago when he was at our church, he said that you can tell the power of whatever hit the earth by the effect. So if you see the crater as miles and miles long, you know that whatever hit it was powerful. A nuclear bomb or maybe an asteroid.

So if the crater is tiny, you know that the rock that hit it was tiny. If you know that the crater goes miles and miles and miles, that you know that there was something humongous. You have to remember, in that short period of time, 25 years, that it would rock the known world at that time to this degree.

It had to have been a huge, huge blast. A blast that human beings have not seen up to this point. If you only grew up in this modern generation after the internet, you have a hard time understanding that. I remember before the internet, some of you guys in the other fellowship, fantastic six fellowship.

You guys all remember, I remember in 1987, 1988, I was up in Seattle and I attended this church. And I remember worshiping and the songs that they were singing were songs that I sang in elementary school and junior high school. And this was a big church. And in their English ministry, they were singing songs that we stopped singing 10 years ago.

And I remember coming back down, I was like, wow, it's like, you know, there's so many stuff, so much stuff happening where we're at, but it took that long. And I wasn't in the countryside. This was one of the biggest churches in Seattle. But I remember thinking like, they're 10 years behind everything we do.

And those of you guys who remember, even up to the 80s, everything that happened, happened in California and New York first. And then it would gradually spread and it would take 10, 11, 12 years to get to the coastal areas and then another 30, 40 years to the Midwest.

It would just take that long to get information out. It had to be something fantastic in order for something to penetrate that far. And it would take that long. Today, you just write something on the internet and all of a sudden it goes viral. Some of you guys don't know what I'm talking about.

This is viral right there. Is it over? I don't know what this is called, but everybody's doing this. Somebody does this and then the whole world is doing this. Deepest part of Africa, they're doing this. What is this? Today, in order for information to spread, it's just instantaneous. You put it online, people like it.

Somebody, you know, 15 year old has 30 million followers and all of a sudden it goes viral and everybody becomes a cultural trend and the whole world changes like that. You want to become an author today? Just write a bunch of stuff and put it on Amazon. It's electronic copy.

Then you can say you're an author. You get on and start a little blog and type a bunch of things and maybe you're just talented and you say something and all of a sudden he's an influencer. And then people are reading this thing and people are sharing articles back and forth and all of a sudden there's a trend that takes place and everybody's talking about it, even in the remotest part of the world.

And all of a sudden they have millions and millions of something that's being spread around becoming popular. But when you go back, there's a 13 year old in his basement who's taking a break from playing video games and has become a mass worldwide influencer. Before the internet, it wasn't like that.

You wanted to become an author, a famous author, it usually started where you're at and you had to have been tested by the group that you're with. And people would test you to see who you are. And then if you gain enough followers because you've been tested and your influence begins to grow, you may get beyond your local area and begin to have influence maybe in the county.

And then after years and years of being proven in the county that you're at, it may possibly go national. So when we were younger, you didn't have authors who were 20, 25, 30, 35 year olds. Usually people who are influencer were in the 70s and 80s. But it didn't happen in your 20s because it took time to test everything to get to that point.

So by the time somebody writes something and it begins to spread, you know that there's 30, 40 years of testing of that person, testing of the knowledge, testing of information before it started going viral. Today, this is all you need. Now why do I say all of this? This is just 30 years ago it was like that.

This is 2000 years ago. Just to get, even if a nuclear bomb went off, it may have taken months for that news to get to a certain area. 2000 years ago. In 25 years, the world got rocked. It got rocked. And even before Paul would show up in some remote village, they heard of him.

Something happened that a Roman official would commission a physician. I need record for this to confirm because what I'm hearing is crazy. Either this was the biggest hoax in human history or Jesus came back from the dead. So what Luke is reporting is a careful eyewitness account that he recorded of what was happening at that time.

The whole world got rocked and it's been tested for 2000 years. And it's just as powerful today as it was 2000 years ago. So is it worth studying the book of Luke? Yes. The power behind these words is not empty. It's not just a collection of information that they threw together.

Christ was resurrected and he churned and the history of mankind was reversed. The curse of mankind was reversed in Jesus Christ. This is the record of that. So I hope you guys are ready. Whether it takes 10 years or 15 years. I don't know how long we're going to be in this thing.

But our goal is the same. As we study the careful account that we would come to the same conviction without a doubt because the purpose of conviction is transformation. That we would be convicted so that we may be transformed. Let's pray.