Luke’s History: Suffering Before Glory

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. Luke sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 3, 1976.

Sermon transcript

Looking at Luke 1 this morning, I would like to read as a text the first four verses, and then also verse 37 once more. As much as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished or fulfilled among us, Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word have handed them down to us, 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 might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught. the angel Gabriel said to Mary, for nothing will be impossible with God. There is no strength in the flesh, there is strength in the Spirit, however, and in the power of the Spirit, the apostles of the Lord have proclaimed the truth. and shown to us that there is to be no boast in the flesh, there is only to be glorying in the cross of Jesus Christ, the proclamation of that cross to the salvation of sinners. We ask this day, our Lord, that we would understand, that we would not move away from the truth, and when the heat of the word becomes intense, May we be intent ourselves in bearing that heat so as to know the truth about ourselves and our God. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I’ve debated in my mind what gospel to pick, but I recognize that since I have been here with you, I have not preached on a gospel in its entirety. I am familiar and have preached through Matthew in my former pastorate. I preached through John in that pastorate as well, but Luke’s gospel I always shied away from. I was frightened by the gospel of Luke. I don’t know why that is, maybe because it’s the longest, but at any rate, I have decided at this time to tackle the gospel of Luke and to preach on that gospel for our benefit.

Luke is unique, as are all the gospel writers, and he is deserving of some preliminary remarks this morning before we jump into the angel visits, the visits of Gabriel. Luke comes to us as an historian, as a biographer, if you will, of Jesus, but not in an ordinary sense.

Yes, he tells us that he is here to write to us in order those things that have been fulfilled among us. He is concerned with historical sequence and order. He is not an eyewitness himself. He is one who has had things handed down to him by those who knew Jesus Christ and who walked with him. But he is one who has committed himself to careful investigation, investigating those things that have taken place from the very beginning.

He tells us this in verses 2 and 3 as he opens up this first chapter. He is one who is using secondary sources. Many have undertaken to compile an account, he says, as he opens up his gospel, and certainly Luke is aware of these records and has read them himself. But he is also one who is using primary sources. He is using the witness of those who saw Jesus Christ, eyewitnesses. He is using those who were originally the servants of the word for his gospel record.

He is also, as an historian, one who is committed to the truth. He is interested that this individual, if we can say he is an individual, Theopolis, He is interested that this person, or that we, be aware of the exact nature of those things that we have been taught. is not just an historian, and I might say historians in general might learn a great deal from this man and his approach to history. For Luke does not merely write as one who is merely interested in the sequence of events, dates, numbers, etc. Luke writes as a believer. he comes to his data, not impartially, but prejudiced. This man is biased. Here he is, right in the Word of God, right within the context of the Scriptures, a biased, a prejudicial individual, and prejudicial to the viewpoint of faith.

He speaks of his inclusion amongst those who have been affected and have themselves embraced the word of truth. Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished or fulfilled among us, he includes himself there. He doesn’t set himself over against this company as some sort of neutral observer. He is involved himself. He has been in contact with the eyewitnesses and servants of the Word, which have handed down to us those things which were accomplished among us. Again, he includes himself. And he himself is committed to that truth which Theophilus, or the lover of God, if you will, is instructed in. He is committed to that truth, and it is from the perspective of that commitment that he runs. Luke is therefore not neutral about the facts. He doesn’t come to them impartially. he comes to them with the eyes of faith as a believer. This doesn’t weaken Luke’s value as a historian, it just makes him an honest one.

Are you so naive to think that when you were going to school and had to wade through those history books that the authors of those books were only giving you the bare facts, apart from any faith commitment on their part? Not so. Not so. They had a condition of heart as surely as Luke did, did they not? And when they decided to cast aspersions on these foolish, pious Christians who are vestiges of primitivism in our day and age, do they make such statements? apart from some kind of commitment of heart on their part? No, of course not.

Luke is an honest historian. And oh, that we had historians who were honest amongst us. who at the very outset were going to tell us about the condition of their hearts, about their presuppositions, their axioms for scholarship, their axes to grind. It’s only after we’ve waded through page after page, chapter after chapter, that the perspective of the author begins to dawn upon us. That his own heart commitment begins to make itself apparent. That we know whether, yes, we have a heart commitment like his or not. But here, in the Gospel, an honest historian tells us his heart commitment at the beginning.

He acknowledges it. I’m prejudiced. I’m prejudiced for the gospel, and I’m biased for the truth that has come out of heaven. Upon that I take my leave. I might even say that here are the foundations of any responsible scholarship and historical inquiry.

Luke, the historian, Luke, the honest historian, the believer. who comes with a heart of faith to the material that is before him. But Luke is more than that. Luke is a preacher, and as a preacher, a theologian, or if you will, he is an interpreter of the facts, and that by the work of the Holy Spirit within him.

So that when he comes to deal with these facts, yes, he comes to them with the heart of faith, but by the ministration of the Holy Spirit in him, for God is at work in him, he works with those facts in order that those facts might render a certain tone and produce a certain talent. so that we might gain a certain perspective on the truth of Jesus Christ, and see things from that vantage point, because indeed, that’s precisely what the Holy Spirit wants us to do. To fill out our understanding of this Christ, not just seeing him from one perspective, but seeing him from many perspectives. in the light of the fourfold perspective of the gospel, and Luke, therefore, has a certain vantage point, given him of the Holy Spirit, by which we then are to appreciate the Savior. We shouldn’t pass over the minutest detail of the gospel in order to understand the richness of what our God has for us here to grasp.

Luke doesn’t write like Matthew, nor does he write like Mark. And there’s a reason for that. And the reason, if we can grasp it, is for the benefit of your spiritual life. It is for the benefit of your own walk in the light of Christ. Well, what might be this particular vantage point, or the interpretive edge of Luke, the Gospel writer, His facts don’t stand there mutely, they speak a rich message. In order to understand Luke as an interpreter, it might be well for us to try to sort out exactly where he stands in the history of redemption. As he says, he wasn’t an eyewitness. He’s depended on them for much of his information. And it says, if he stands then at a distance from those events, and if you will, he stands in the company of a second-generation church. And the problems of the second generation church are rather complicated.

For here you have this Jesus who has come and proclaimed the gospel of glory. And here I am sitting here in this church somewhere in Asia Minor, and glory isn’t exactly apparent to me. I’ve been given the promise of redemption and salvation, which I take to be universal, and that there’s going to be one day the renewal of the heavens and the earth in the perfect society. All of it promised to me by Jesus Christ, and here I find myself, Jesus gone, the apostles dying out, and what’s happening?” God, maybe, has forgotten, or maybe there was something wrong with that promise at the beginning. Or maybe, I haven’t quite understood what that gospel was, and it is in need of some other kind of interpretation.

Problems of the second generation church link us very much with Luke, though do they not? For here we sit, still waiting. Luke is interested in resolving this problem. And the way in which he resolves it is in terms of poverty and then glory. You remember Jesus at the end of Luke’s Gospel, the beautiful story that is told only by Luke, Jesus, after he had been raised from the dead, walking down the road with the two people who didn’t recognize him. They were hardly expecting to see him. And they were troubled, and Jesus asks them what their problem is, and they said, well, we had hoped that this prophet from Nazareth was the Messiah, but now he’s been crucified and he’s dead. And Jesus, says Luke, went on to explain to them how it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer in order to enter into his glory.

Later on, in the book of Acts, Luke wrote Acts as well, the 14th chapter, he’s telling us about Paul and his missionary trip to Lystra. Here he is at Lystra preaching the gospel, and some of the unbelievers rise up, carry him out of the city and stone him.

Paul is certainly asking the question, where is the glory, Lord? If I am being stoned, why do I have to go through this? Well, he makes his way eventually back through Lystra. with one message for them. He tells them in Acts 14 verse 22, through many sufferings we must enter into the kingdom of God. The structure then that Luke wants us to understand is the process from suffering and humiliation to glory and exaltation.

And as it was for the Christ, so it is for us. For we are united to him. The second generation church must be reminded of that fact. that it is from suffering to glory, and glory comes in the time and by the power of God. Now this is not to say that for Luke, glory hasn’t made its appearance in Jesus Christ and His work. That is certainly true, and we can find evidences of that throughout the entire Gospel. In fact, Luke sees Jesus Christ as the second Adam, as the beginning of a new creation, already in process, of which we can become participators, in which we can become participators through faith in him. All of this is well. These things are worked out by Luke, as he tells us the story of the angel of visits.

Here is the angel that stands beside God, closest to that glory, who has come to earth. And to whom does he come? He comes to a man and a woman advanced in age who have never had a child, and in that a symbol of poverty to be sure. It is God in His power, by His might and His grace, who relieves Elizabeth of her reproach. How shall the poverty and the humiliation be overcome by the supernatural power and visitation of God? By His marvelous grace, that’s how. And if the granting of a child to a barren couple, advanced in age, isn’t difficult enough for you, The angel Gabriel then visits a virgin who knows no man, and proclaims to her that by the power of the Holy Spirit she shall conceive and give birth to a child, and that child shall be the very Son of God. to the poverty, to the suffering, to the reproach of God’s people is the marvelous power and work of grace by God Himself, not the inventions of men, not the strength which they have in themselves. How is it possible for Zacharias and Elizabeth to produce a child?

It’s impossible. How is it possible for Mary to give birth to a child without knowing a man? It is not possible. It is impossible with men. But as the angel Gabriel says, for nothing will be impossible with God, and as it has been with them who are poor and suffering as symbols of the humiliation of God’s people, so shall it be for us who are united to them as the poor of the earth, we who have nothing and have no strength in ourselves, must receive of the visitation of God’s power and His grace if we are to be delivered of our humiliation and our suffering, which is our loss because we belong to Christ.

And how timely this message is. You see, the problem that Luke is addressing is not just because people get tired of waiting. Where is the promise that is coming? Things get a little bit trying, and the situations become strange, and life at times becomes unbearable.

It’s because, you know, that Luke opens up his gospel by addressing this individual named Theophilus with a title, Most Excellent Theophilus. Are we to assume then that this man was of high standing in society as a member of the Church? And now being removed from that point in time when the power and the grace of God was so much evident, men like this, who are trained in power and know the ways of the world, are so tempted to bring those ways into the Church and think that by that method they can accomplish the purposes of God. To Theophilus, to the man who is most excellent, to the man who has the title, to the man who has prominence in the world, comes the message of Luke.

Your company is the poor. Don’t you forget that. Your lot has been passed to the poor, to those who have no strength. And it is amongst them, whose company you keep, that God shall manifest His will in the birth of His Son. How we need to be. You see, the poor are our best friends. They were the ones that God came to. And they are the ones that we should go to.

Lord Father, we know that we face a two-fold problem. One, the wait. We pray that we might wait in faith, with bold confidence. But also, Father, we face the problem of prominence, prestige, affluence. arrogance, self-sufficiency, thinking that the Kingdom of God comes by our power and our invention, and by our striving. Remind us in the Gospel of Luke that you came and visited the poor, And our lot has been casted in. Oh, we ask that we would remember this. Because in sharing their humility, in sharing, Father, their suffering, we shall also share their glory.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.