Last summer we went through a series called What We Believe and Bernie preached on Satan. I’ll admit it. For some reason I was a little jealous. Well today I get to preach on Satan and demons, but now I’m not so sure that’s anything to be happy about. See, demons are dark and scary and not fun to study.

One of my very first introductions to the fallen angel Satan and demons was on one of those old church felt boards. Felt Satan threw felt fiery darts at felt Jesus, but they wouldn’t stick. The idea of demons didn’t really scare me until I was about 10 or 11 years old and my best-friend Jordan told me he saw a demon. He said he woke up during the night, the room was totally dark, and he looked over his bunkbed railing and saw a demon that was blacker than darkness staring at his younger brother on the bunkbed below him. He said it looked up at him and he told it, “In the name of Jesus, be gone!” And immediately the demon threw up its hands and disappeared.

That story totally freaked me out. I was convinced for years after that I was going to see a demon during the night and I was so afraid. I made matters worse by reading some of Frank Peretti’s books on angels and demons, and then attempting to write my own. My fear of demons got so bad that my brother was afraid to walk by my bed late at night because I would wake up calling him Satan and casting him out. That would be unnerving for anyone. Sometimes I still think I see things at night and it makes it hard to sleep.

Talking and thinking about demons is chilling, and can make us feel afraid no matter how old or young we are. This is for a good reason. The Bible tells us demons are real, but also that we don’t need to be afraid if we know and trust Jesus. I want us to look at the demons and their power first, and then turn to Jesus.

Demons are real and they have real power (Luke 8:26-30).

26 They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. 27 When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” 29 For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

30 Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. (NIV®)

A demon is a fallen angel who works under the ruler of the demons, Satan, to lead people away from a saving relationship with Jesus Christ and to tempt Christians to sin.

All throughout Jesus’ ministry we see him encountering demons. In Luke 4, he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness for 40 days and he drove out an impure spirit in Capernaum after leaving his home town of Nazareth. In Luke 6, people traveled to Jesus to be healed of evil spirits. At the beginning of Luke 8, we’re introduced to Mary Magdalene who Jesus cast seven demons out. Now in Luke 8, we come to a man who doesn’t have, one, or seven, but has so many demons he calls himself “Legion.” A legion is a battalion of about 6,000 Roman soldiers. Demons are real and they have real power.

Notice what the demons have done to him. They drive him away from his home, family, community, and out into the wilderness to live in tombs. They give him supernatural strength to break chains on his hands and shackles on his feet. Mark’s account says the man would “Cry out and cut himself with stones” (Mk 5:1-20). Clearly, here in Luke, he’s not in his right mind. He’s naked, wild, and crazy, someone we would lock up today. These demons have destroyed this man’s life, causing him harm and the ones he loves.

Demons are not the boogey-men of our imaginations, but a very

Did you ever play sports as a kid? What’s the worst part of starting a game? Picking sides! Someone appoints team captains and they line everyone up. Then each team captain picks one kid and then another and another. And who do they always end up picking first? They pick the tallest kid or the fastest kid, definitely the most athletic kid. And when they pick them, it’s like, “High five! Yeah! We got you!”

But then, all the best kids are taken, and the team captains have to choose the average players. That’s when they start to concentrate, their foreheads scowl as they focus, and their teammates whisper to them who they should choose because they’re trying to figure out which kid is just a little bit better than the others kids. This group is the moderately fast kids, maybe those kids who aren’t great at sports, but they’re not bad either.

Finally, we get to the last group. The group nobody wants to choose from. These are the skinny nerds, the boys and girls who don’t want to be there but got forced to play, and the kids that want to play, but lack size, height, and don’t have that poor hand-eye coordination. These are the freaks and geeks nobody wants.

Do we ever treat our faith this way? We look at some people and say, “Wow, you would make a great Christian!” Some we think, “You’d do okay.” And there are those that it’s just like, “No way.” Luke wrote his Gospel to show us the types of people Jesus draws to himself. Today we’re in Luke chapter 7, but do you remember back in Luke chapter 4 when Jesus described the purpose of his ministry?

Luke 4:18-19

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (NIV®)

So already, at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when he is just starting out, we see Jesus intends to reach, the poor, the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed. They are all groups of people in that culture, and even in today’s culture, that we wouldn’t choose for a winning Christian team.

The best players, the most religious, the ones who knew their Scriptures the most were the Jews in that culture, especially the educated or socially active Jews, the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and teachers of the law. Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth recognized his power, and thought he was going to “pick them first.” But Jesus tells two stories to illustrate his message is for those standing on the outside.

Luke 4:25-26 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.

The region of Sidon was in ancient Syria in “the heartland of Baal worship.” God sends Elijah out of the land of Israel to a place where people worship demons. Elijah actually ends up saving this woman and her son from starvation, but later her son dies from an illness. But Elijah performs a miracle and raises him from the dead (1 Kings 17:8-24). Salvation is for outsiders. And then Jesus continues.

Luke 4:27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” (NIV®)

This story comes in the time of Elisha, who lived around 850 years before the birth of Jesus, and was Elijah’s protégé. Naaman, also from Syria and an enemy of the state of Israel, comes down with leprosy, but his Jewish servant girl says the prophet Elisha can heal him. His king gives him permission to go, and he travels from Syria to Israel. There Elisha says to bathe seven times in the Jordan river and he will be cured. At first he refuses, but then he washes, and is healed (2 Kings 5:1-14). Salvation is for the outsider.

Throughout the many books in the Bible, God is telling a story—how he loves to give grace to

What is the Sabbath? I want to offer you two definitions:

“Biblical Sabbath is a twenty-four-hour block of time in which we stop work, enjoy rest, practice delight, and contemplate God.” The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero

“Saturday; the holy day when Jewish people were commanded not to work.” Luke 1-12 For You by Mike McKinley

Our first definition is more modern and explains how the Sabbath matters for us. Our second definition goes back to the original context of the Sabbath, and how it mattered for the nation of Israel thousands of years ago. Both definitions are good, but does the Bible have a definition? Let’s turn to the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:8-11  “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (NIV®)

Why do we throw out this commandment? We don’t do that with any of the other 10 Commandments. The Bible says Jesus perfectly obeyed the law, but that doesn’t mean we can now murder or steal (Matt 5:17-18). Jesus kept Sabbath, and as a follower of Jesus, I believe we’re called to keep a day of Sabbath rest still. In our passage today, Jesus doesn’t end the practice of Sabbath, but clarifies it. He doesn’t say, “You should no longer do this” but rather, “This is how you should do it.” In one sense, Jesus offers us his own definition by first tellings us what the Sabbath is not, and then what it is.

The Sabbath is not… a day for burdensome rules. (Luke 6:1-2)

Luke 6:1-2 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

When the Pharisees see the disciples picking and eating heads of grain on the Sabbath, they believe they have broken the Sabbath law. They counted the act of plucking as reaping, the act of rubbing as threshing, and the act of eating as preparing a meal, all of which are work. They did all this to get a small gooey pellet of food, which I’m sure tasted like something you can buy at Whole Foods.

For a long time the nation of Israel broke God’s sabbath laws and this is one of the reasons God sent Israel into exile (2 Chronicles 36:21). So as the Jewish people came back to Israel, they created extra rules to prevent themselves from breaking the Sabbath again. If there’s a fence around the Sabbath, they created a fence around the fence so that they wouldn’t come close to breaking the Sabbath. They did this by forbidding 39 activities on the Sabbath, and that day the disciples broke at least four of their rules.

But if you look at the restrictions around the Sabbath in the Bible, there aren’t that many. You’re not supposed to work, collect, prepare food, or start a fire, you’re supposed to rest, and a few others. It doesn’t say you can’t write or erase two letters, but their list of 39 rules said that.

When we add rules to God’s way, we create religion. What a religion based on rules does is create fear, guilt, and anxiety. In the grainfield that day, Jesus challenges their additional rules and the guilt it creates.

There’s a very simple application for us here. The Sabbath is not a day for burdensome rules. As Christians, God gives us a day of rest each week. This is not a day to worry about if you’re doing Sabbath rest right or wrong. Trying to do Sabbath right should not stress you out. However, neither should we use our conviction of Sabbath rest to lord it over others and to look like a superior religious person.

The Sabbath is not… a day for burdensome rules. But does

The first sermon I can remember on Jesus eating and drinking with sinners was at the first church-planter’s conference I attended. In March 2013, I attended the Nineveh Project, which was the  4C’s (our denomination’s) church planting conference. It was in Revere Massachusetts and I went because Monica and I had taken a class on church planting the previous summer.

I met the Conference Minister Ron Hamilton there and he told me he heard Monica and I studied Westford in our church-planting class. He thought that was very interesting because he had been praying for a new ministry to take on Westford Bible Church’s building to start a new church plant. This church-planting conference took place 3 months before I got hired at Immanuel and 9 months before Westford Bible Church approached Immanuel to take their building.

One of the speakers at this conference was a Pastor named Matt Kruse. Some of you may remember Pastor Paul McPheeters who lead us through the Quest Church-Plant Training before we launched Cornerstone. Matt Kruse planted a church called Seven Mile Road out of Paul’s McPheeters church. When Matt got up to speak, he talked about Jesus’ bold act of eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, and how as Jesus’ disciples today we’re to do the same. He shared how that’s what they were doing as a church plant.

That sermon really convicted my heart, and got my excited about church planting. I walked away wanting to eat and drink with people who don’t know Jesus. We got the chance to start Cornerstone in October 2015 and now as I look out on all of you I do sense it’s our desire to eat and drink with people who don’t know Jesus. I believe we have a desire to do this, but I don’t know if we are doing this. Maybe this is because I don’t see your daily lives and only know what you tell me, or maybe it’s because we’re not doing it.

So I hope today’s sermon does two things. If you are spending time with non-Christians, I hope today’s message acts as a confirmation that you’re doing the right thing, and as an encouragement to keep going (Gal 6:9). But if you can’t remember the last time you ate a meal with a non-Christian or went out to drinks with them, I hope this sermon will convict your heart, lead you to repentance, and motivate you to intentionally spend time with people that need Jesus. (let’s pray)

Jesus has begun his ministry. He grew up in Nazareth, was baptized by John in the Jordan river, and successfully resisted the temptations of Satan in the wilderness. He returned to his hometown of Nazareth where he explained his ministry is to the poor, prisoners, blind, and oppressed, but his hometown doesn’t like that he won’t play favorites with them and tries to kill him. He escapes and goes to preach in other parts of Galilee as he casts out demons and performs miracles to prove that he is the Messiah.

In Luke 9-19 we’ll see Jesus make his way down to Jerusalem for his crucifixion and resurrection, but in Luke 4-5 he is doing ministry near Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee. In fact, at the Sea of Galilee in Luke 5 Jesus calls his first disciple Peter shortly before he calls another disciple named Levi. In these we learn…

Jesus calls sinners to become disciples. (Luke 5:27-28)

Luke 5:27-28 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. (NIV®)

One of the first sinners Jesus came to rescue is a man named Levi. Levi has two names. If you read the parallel account in Matthew you find out Levi’s name was also Matthew. Levi Matthew is the same tax collector who eventually wrote the gospel of Matthew.

Jesus is walking along the sea of Galilee and spots Levi sitting in his tax-collector’s booth. If you read Mark’s account, you learn the tax booth was by the lake (Mark 2:13-17). This is the same lake Jesus was just at when he called Peter to become his disciple in Luke 5:1-11. Peter and his part

Jesus cares. Jesus cares about the poor. He cares about those who live on welfare, those below the poverty line, those on Medicaid, those who will never live in Westford unless it’s in low-income housing. He cares about the rural white poor and the inner city black poor.

Jesus cares about prisoners. He cares for those behind bars, not just the innocent ones, but the guilty ones too. Jesus cares for felons, for violent offenders, for white-collar criminals, for sex offenders. He cares about those locked up in MCI in Concord and Middlesex House of Correction near Route 3.

Jesus cares about the blind. He cares about those who can’t see, both physically and spiritually. He cares about the sick and diseased. He cares about chemo treatments, surgeries, infertility, and catching the flue. Jesus cares about those with mental illness, with sick bodies, and with sick souls.

Jesus cares about the oppressed. He cares about those who are socially and economically beaten down, who are spiritually and morally beaten down, and those who are depressed and just plain sad. Jesus cares about unjust laws and burdensome taxes. Jesus cares.

Luke wrote his gospel for the oppressed, the downtrodden, the outsider. Luke wrote it to a Hellenistic audience, an audience who stood on the outside of normal religious life. He wrote it to show how God elevates the lowly in the kingdom of God (Luke 4:43). The first of Jesus’ sermons Luke records shows just how much Jesus cares.

After Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, he returns to the region of Galilee, a marginalized region, to Nazareth, a town we think of about 400 people, and he goes into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day, Saturday. He opens the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and begins to read these words.

Isaiah 61:1-2

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

because the Lord has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives

and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

and the day of vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn, (NIV®)

Jesus reads the first couple verses following Isaiah 60. In Isaiah 60, the prophet pictures the whole world in darkness, a thick darkness covering all people (Isaiah 60:1-2a). But then, like a sunrise, God’s promises to shine his glory on his people Israel, and through them to light up the world. They are supposed to act as a light to the people living in a great darkness.

At the beginning of Isaiah 61, the chapter Jesus reads, Isaiah explains how this new day will dawn. God will send his anointed one, which is what Messiah means, who will preach good news to the poor, captives, sick, and prisoners. He will proclaim the rising of a new day, of a new era, the year of the Lord’s favor.

Have you ever been camping and your batteries ran out? I once went camping in a cave and my batteries in my lights ran out. It got real dark, and I had to depend on the lights of my friends. Imagine for a moment that you and your family are camping and all of your batteries go out and clouds are covering the moon and stars. It would get really dark and your wife and kids would get scared but you wouldn’t. Every noise would sound like a bear and there would be nothing you could do, but try to go to sleep till the morning. But then you remember you’re camping in Alaska and it’s going to be night for another 65 days. Now you really want that light. But thankfully, you call for help, and a park ranger brings lamps to your campsite. He has the light, and gives it to you, and now the darkness isn’t dark anymore.

Isaiah tells us the whole world is covered in a darkness called sin, but God will provide a light for his people,   forgiveness for sin, and the Messiah will bring that light to them. But this isn’t a light the Messiah will carry in his hand. This light will actually shine through his mouth. Isaiah says he will “proclaim good news” and he will “proclaim freed

Please listen to or watch Terry Iles‘s sermon on the temptation of Jesus. You can download his sermon notes by clicking “Save” then “PDF.”

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Chances are this is the last sermon we’re going to hear in 2017. Next Saturday will be a whole new year, 2018. How do you feel about 2017? Did you love it? Did you like all the crazy news? Will you remember 2017 as a good year for you and your family, or a hard year? How do you feel about 2018? What kind of expectations are you setting? Are you finally going to get in shape, read your Bible, take that cooking class? Maybe you hope to have kids or get married.

This time of year always involves two things: 1) a letting go of the previous year with its successes and failures; and 2) a welcoming-in of the new year with its potential and possibilities. Out with the old; in with the new. Right? Today, we find a similar theme in Luke chapters 2-3. We’re looking at three stories that share an ending and a beginning.

As we look at these texts, and grow in our understanding of God’s word, I hope that today’s sermon will help you let go of 2017 and look forward to what God might have for you in 2018. It’s not that we want to forget what God taught us in 2017, but we want to open our hearts to what he might teach us anew in 2018. Out with the old; in with the new. We start with a man and and a woman who knew what it means to be old.

Simeon & Anna (Luke 2:22-40)

Joseph and Mary take Jesus to Jerusalem so that Mary can be purified 40 days after giving birth to Jesus (Lev 12:1-4). At the temple, they meet the elderly man Simeon. Luke describes Simeon as “righteous and devout” and waiting for the “consolation of Israel.” The consolation of Israel means the comfort of Israel. Isaiah 40 explains that God comforts his people by forgiving their sins (Isa 40:1-2).

When you were a kid, did you ever break a window? That caused you a lot of terror and fear, right? You didn’t receive comfort in that moment by running away or blaming your older brothers, but by telling your parents or your neighbors what you did. And when you told them, although there were consequences, they also forgave you, and that forgiveness is what gave you comfort. It’s the same with God. We’ve broken his window, his creation, but he forgives us. That is comforting. That gives us hope.

But what if you were still waiting to be forgiven for breaking the window? What if our parents, and grandparents, and our great-grandparents, and so on and so on had been waiting thousands of years to be forgiven? You’d feel impatient. You’d lose hope. But what if the Holy Spirit told you that before you die you would meet the one who will forgive your sins?

As Simeon stands there with Mary and Joseph, his hope is realized, “Now I can depart in my peace because I have seen your salvation.” But this hope and comfort won’t just be for him. Verse 32, he will be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles.” God’s message of comfort is not just for Israel, but all nations, including the Greek-speaking audience Luke is writing to. So forgiveness is not just for me who breaks windows, but for other neighbor kids who break windows too. We can all be forgiven.

Simeon even explains how when he says to Mary, “a sword will pierce through your own soul…” (Lk 2:35) This child will experience discomfort to give God’s comfort to all peoples. Simeon speaks of the cross.

Then the story turns to the prophet Anna who was very elderly, but also never gave up hope in God for 84 years (Lk 2:37). When she sees Jesus, she identifies him as the one who will redeem Israel. To redeem something means to buy it back. Jesus will buy back his people at the cross. When you break a window, someone has to pay for it. Either you have to pay for it, your parents, or your neighbor. Jesus pays for our broken window. He takes tge cost upon himself. Simeon and Anna leave us with a lesson in hope.

Out with impatience; in with hope.

They both had to wait their whole lives to see the Messiah—the one God chose to comfort and redeem his people from their sins. But when we meet them in the narrative, they’re clearly not disheartened. They’re happy

Last year Monica and I traveled to my hometown of Estes Park Colorado for the Holidays. It’s known for being the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. A lot of people visit there in the summer, but only about 10,000 live there year-round. Many who grow up there leave when they graduate high school. Estes doesn’t have corporate jobs. It doesn’t have a great school district. It has lots of elk and lots of tourists, nothing special ever seems to happen there.

That first night we were there, we were eating dinner with my family when we heard a knock on the door. I went and answered it and it was my childhood friend Jake with his new wife Maggie, who looked very pregnant and very tired. I invited them inside and they sat down on our couch exhausted. Now I hadn’t hung out with Jake in years, but I’d recently Facebook stalked him because he’d just married Maggie, who he met up north where he worked as a carpenter building houses.

As Jake sat there, I asked him what was going on. He explained the Governor of their state had passed a new bill requiring workers to demonstrate proof of citizenship. Of course it was being challenged in the courts, but he’d contacted the hospital in Estes anyways to send him a copy of his birth certificate. Due to a clerical error, they lost his paperwork, so they had to travel home to get his registration figured out. I said I was sorry for them, especially during the Holidays, but asked why he’d come to us.

He told me that none of his family lived in town anymore, and every hotel, inn, and Airbnb was full, and of all his old friends in town, he knew that my parents rented out our home as a vacation rental, so would they have an extra room they could spare for the night? I said, “normally, yes, but there’s no room in our vacation rental. My mom and dad are hosting my three older brothers, their wives, and my combined ten nieces and nephews, so our house is packed.”

Maggie burst into tears and said, “We just need someplace to stay. I don’t want my unborn baby to sleep in the cold. He’s special… An angel told me he is going to be the King of Kings and will change the world.”

I thought, well that’s kind of weird…

I think she saw the look on my face because she said, “The angel really told me the Holy Spirit would give me a baby and that I should name him Joshua because he will save his people from their sins. People are going to call him the Son of the Most High, the Son of God.” (Luke 1:26-38)

What could I say to that? I was pretty sure from their wedding photos that their wedding was a shotgun wedding, since she was already pregnant. I thought she was crazy. Of course Jake was the father. I didn’t believe her. I thought she was making it up. I didn’t even stop to consider if there were some truth in what she was saying. Maybe this baby would change the world, but he definitely wasn’t the Son of God.

“Are you sure you don’t have a place we could stay?” Jake asked.

That’s when I remembered that my parents were building a tiny house to live in the next summer as they rented out their home, but that although it wasn’t quite done, it did have insulation in the walls and a wood burning stove. We were housing our bunnies out there, so it did smell like bunnies, but they didn’t care. I moved our bunnies to the garage, took Jake and Maggie out to the tiny house, got a fire started, and left.

But five minutes later Jake banged on my door, his face white as a sheet. He said, “Maggie is having her baby!” So I said, “So take her to the hospital!” But he said, “We don’t have insurance.” I said, “Bring her inside!” But he said, “It’s too late, we can’t move her. We’re having the baby tonight in the tiny house!”

So I ran and got my sister-in-law who gave birth at home. And for the next couple hours we all sweated it out as Maggie screamed and yelled and Jake ran back and forth getting hot water and towels and looking terrified. Then the cries of pain stopped, and the cries of a baby filled the night air. And a few minu

Have you ever noticed how two people can respond differently to the same news?

“Look, free puppies!” Great news for kids. Bad news for parents.

“Mom and dad, I got into my first choice of college, the expensive private one!” Great news for their child. Bad news for their bank account.

“The verdict is… not guilty.” Great news for the defendant. Bad news for the plaintiff.

In Luke chapter one, we read how two different people respond to similar news. The news is delivered by the angel Gabriel to Zechariah first, and then Mary. Gabriel tells them both that they are each going to have a child, and their child either prepares the way for the Messiah (Zechariah’s son John) or is the Messiah himself (Mary’s son Jesus). The Messiah is the deliverer God promised to his people. This news is difficult to believe. Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife, is old and barren, so it’s nearly impossible for her to conceive. And Mary is a virgin and so it’s impossible for her to conceive.

Chances are the angel Gabriel has not appeared to you this Christmas and said, “You will bear a child and you should name him John or Jesus.” But we’ve all received good news we can celebrate this Christmas—the birth of Jesus Christ, not to mention all the promises of God. There’s plenty to celebrate.

I don’t know about you, but I struggle to find hope at Christmas time. I feel a little like Charlie Brown in A Charlie Brown Christmas. I find it hard to believe, hard to celebrate. I like all the Christmas lights and the snow (not so much Santa). I like all the gift and the wrapping. But I don’t like the busyness and consumerism. And I often find it hard to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

That’s a little bit like the heart-attitude of Zechariah. He heard the good news, but like Charlie Brown, and like me, and maybe like some of you, he struggles to believe. I want to have hope, and I think we can, but we first need to examine our own hearts, and we can do so by looking at Zechariah’s heart.

Zechariah the doubter (Lk 1:5-25)

Here’s the story: In the time of King Herod (probably around 4 B.C.) there was a priest named Zechariah who had a wife named Elizabeth (1:5). Both of them were good people. It’s not that they did more good than bad, but they sought to obey God, his commands and decrees, and so God considered them righteous (1:6). But there was only one problem, they were childless. They were both old and Elizabeth was infertile (1:7).

One day Zechariah was chosen by lot (what looked like chance but was God’s will) to burn incense in the temple before God (1:8), and when he goes in, the angel Gabriel appears to him (1:11, 19). Of course, this was terrifying, but the angel assured him he didn’t need to be afraid.

Luke 1:13a, 17  But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.

And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous— to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (NIV®)

The angel promises Zechariah that he and Elizabeth will have a child in their old age just like God gave other infertile couples in the Old Testament children as a sign of his promises: Isaac to Abraham and Sarah (Gen 21), Samson to Manoah and his wife (Judges 13), and Samuel to his mother Hannah (1 Sam 1). This child John will be special like them. He will fulfill the prophecy from the Old Testament book of Malachi that the prophet Elijah would come again to prepare the way for the Lord (Mal 3:1, 4:5-6). John is a miracle baby and the second Elijah. That’s amazing news! But does Zechariah believe?

Luke 1:18  Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” (NIV®)

Zechariah is saying this to the angel, “Prove it! You say I’m going to have a baby. Prove it! I don’t believe you.” Have you ever told a friend, or

Fake news… What’s the difference between news that is real and news that is fake? And if you were put to the test to determine what news actually happened, would you get it right? Today, I’d like to put you to that test. I want to show you some headlines and for you to guess if they’re real or fake.

“Gatorade banned and fined $300k for bad-mouthing water.” Do you think this is true or fake? This is actually true news. Gatorade made an app game that portrayed water as bad and got sued.

“Elderly woman trains 65 cats to steal from her neighbors.” You can picture it. Owner trains cats to pick up shiny objects in their mouths in their homes. But is it real? This is fake news.

“Celebrate pancakes with a maple syrup bath at famous Japanese hot springs resort.” Don’t you like pancakes so much you just want to bathe in syrup? Guess what? You can! This is true news.

“The story of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is true.” Our sermon series is entitled “The Certain Gospel” because I believe what Luke’s gospel account records for us is true, it’s certain, and it’s good news, which is what gospel means. So we could call our series “true good news.”

But whether Jesus is true news or fake news is the big question, isn’t it? Luke set out to answer this question about 40 years after Jesus’ crucifixion—somewhere around AD 70. We don’t know exactly when he wrote this gospel, but he does tell us why he wrote it, how he wrote it, and what he wrote. In our sermon today we’re going to answer those three questions:

What did Luke write? (Lk 1:1)

How did he write it? (Lk 1:2-3)

Why did he write? (Lk 1:4)

It’s as we answer these three questions that we will will begin to understand whether or not Jesus is true news or fake news. Jesus is the most important person in all of human history, and he makes some pretty startling claims about how we should live our lives and what comes next after we die. I want to know if Jesus is true or false. So let’s get started.

What did Luke write?

Let’s see if we can find the answer in verse one.

Luke 1:1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, (NIV®)

Another way you can say this is, “Many have tried to draft the story of what God promised to do and did among us.” Luke is setting out to write two things: 1) a narrative, a history, a record of what took place among them; and 2) how it is a fulfillment of God’s promises in the Old Testament. Luke is writing Christmas! Luke writes how God stepped down into human history, which is what we celebrate.

The story of God stepping into human history.

As we look at all the big themes we’re going to see in Luke, we see over and over again God stepping into human history—that he is becoming apart of our narrative. I’ve adapted and condensed the major themes from Mike McKinley’s Luke For You series into four themes.

The Holy Spirit moves: The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity (Father, Son, Spirit), one God, three persons. The book of Acts is famous for the movement of the Spirit, but Acts is the second book in a two-part series. The Spirit shows up first in Luke (Lk 1:35; 2:25-27; 4:14; 10:21).

Prayer works: Prayer is talking with the one true God. Skye Jethani illustrates the 4 Stages of Prayer. Prayer is not talking at God, but talking to him, listening to him, and being with him. Luke records when Jesus prays and his teachings on prayer (Lk 6:28; 9:18, 28; 11:1-9; 18:1-14).

God saves his people: When the angel announces to the shepherds the arrival of Jesus, the angel says “a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah” (Lk 2:11). The Messiah was God’s promised Savior. Since Adam and Eve sinned and this world fell into brokenness, God has been unfolding a plan to save people who put their faith in him, and this plan comes to completion in Jesus (Lk 4:21; 19:10; 22:37; 24:44).

Jesus flips the norm upside-down: When Jesus comes, he blesses social outcasts like the poor and the sick and prostitute