19 - The Lord of Lepers
June 9, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 5:12–16
Leprosy! The very word filled the first-century Jew with horror. They regarded it as “the stroke of God.” In Luke 5:12-16, Jesus shows compassion to a leper and cleanses him. In doing so, Jesus' fame reached new heights, forcing him to become more reclusive. The Lord was willing to trade places with the leper, so to speak; the Savior was willing to become the outsider; relocating to isolated places so that this untouchable leper, the ultimate outsider, could be rescued and restored and brought back into the city. Therein is pictured the reality of the Gospel—Jesus traded places with sinners in order to make them clean and deliver them from sin.
18 - The Holy Fisherman
June 2, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 5:1–11
The Gospel of Luke is the lengthiest of the four Gospels. Yet despite that fact, the reader doesn't have to wait long or look far and wide in Luke’s writing to see the true nature of the Lord revealed for who he truly is. The real Jesus is unmistakably clear in every section of Luke’s gospel and no more so than in Luke 5:1-11. This passage portrays Jesus as fully human--who acted like a man, talked like a man, and walked like a man. Yet, these verses also reveal that he was no ordinary man. This profound incident where Jesus catches a multitude of fish, much to the amazement of Peter, reveals the true identity and nature of Jesus and how holy he is.
17 - The Miracle Worker
May 26, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 4:38–44
Nowhere is the compassion of Jesus more evident than in his healing ministry recorded in Luke 4:38-44. No sooner had Jesus exorcised a demoniac in the Capernaum synagogue did he and his disciples travel to Peter’s house in downtown Capernaum, where he once again demonstrated his authority over the physical effects of sin. Starting with Peter's mother-in-law, Jesus pulled an all nigher, healing everyone and anyone of their affliction. It’s believed that enough miracles were performed that night to fill an entire book. Nothing like it has ever occurred in all the centuries before Jesus’ earthly ministry or since.
16 - The Deliverer & The Demoniac
May 12, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 4:31–37
To the surprise of many Christians, evil spirits (or demons) do not really make an appearance in the Old Testament, particularly as it relates to possession. Apart from 1 Samuel 16, they are only alluded to in Genesis 6. It wasn’t until the Kingdom of God was inaugurated with the arrival of Jesus Christ that demons revealed themselves to a spiritually-awakened world. Interestingly, they never attacked Jesus. Not once. Demons assaulted the souls of sinful people (cf. 1 Sam. 16), to be sure, but never did they assault the sinless Jesus. In fact, whenever a confrontation occurred between Jesus and demons, it was always Jesus who went on the attack. And the Lord's first encounter with a demonic in the synagogue in Capernaum demonstrated conclusively his authority over the satanic.
15 - The Homecoming of Jesus
May 5, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 4:14–30
The Jews of Nazareth, in Jesus' hometown, demanded miracles from him when he returned after a full year ministering down in Judea. They wanted miracles from Jesus but what they got instead was a lecture, and a most unpalatable one at that. Rebuking their unbelief (cf. Mark 6:6), Jesus invoked the Old Testament stories of the widow in Zarephath and Naaman the leper, turning the synagogue crowd against him. They took umbrage with him when he read aloud Isaiah 61:1-2 and 58:6 and applied those texts to himself, but they were fit to be tied when he invoked the stories of the Gentile window and leper as a rebuke. To suggest that God would favor Gentiles (who repent) over natural-born Jews who didn't was both unthinkable and unforgivable to them. But Jesus miraculously escaped their murderous intent to throw him off a cliff.
14 - The Temptation of Jesus
April 28, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 4:1–13
Generally speaking, when Christians fall victim to temptation, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Temptation, we are told in James 1:14, comes from deep within our own decadent heart and unredeemed flesh. For the perfectly sinless Jesus, however, in whom there was no decadence or fallenness, his temptation came from outside him--from the devil. Each of Satan’s temptations were met with the same answer by Jesus: “It is written,” followed by three citations from the book of Deuteronomy. In other words, Jesus didn’t dialogue with the devil. He didn’t debate the devil. And he didn’t dance with the devil while in the midst of temptation. Instead, he defeated the devil using the only weapon he had on him at the time—the Word of God embedded in his mind.
13 - The Baptism & Genealogy of Jesus
April 21, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 3:21–38
The Gospels offer two distinct genealogies for Christ. Matthew, in chapter 1, traces Jesus’ genealogy from Joseph—Jesus’ stepfather—back to Abraham through the line of Solomon, the Son of David, to show Chris’s legal right to the throne. Luke, on the other hand, in chapter 3 of his gospel, traces Jesus’ genealogy from Mary—Jesus’ birth mother—back to Adam through the line of Nathan, David’s other son and Solomon’s older brother, to show Christ’s birthright to the throne. This is arguably one the greatest trick plays that God ever or will ever pull off! God not only outsmarted Satan, who was determined to corrupt David's royal line through Solomon, but He proved Himself faithful to the covenant that He had made with David in 2 Samuel 7.
12 - The Ministry of John the Baptist (Part 2)
March 24, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 3:7–8
The word "repentance" comes from the Greek word "metánoia," which literally means “to change one’s mind” to the degree that it results in changed behavior. All Christians fall into sin on occasion. But by the grace of God, we recognize our falling, stumbling, and failures for the sins that they are, and we repent of it, trusting that He who began a good work in us promises that He will complete His perfect work in us one day (Philippians 1:6). Until then, our conduct is but one piece of evidence of our salvation. But where and when our conduct fails—and it most certainly will—then it is our repentance that shows the genuineness of our imperfect but saving faith.
11 - The Ministry of John the Baptist (Part 1)
March 17, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 3:1–6
God did not use one of the Herods who ruled the territories in and around Israel to introduce His Son to the world? He did not use Pilate, the Roman procurator/governor who ruled Galilee, to pave the way for His Son in the world. He did not use the Pharaoh of Egypt who ruled much of the Mesopotamian area to herald His son before the world. And He did not use Tiberius Caesar, the emperor of Rome, to be the forerunner for His Son. Instead, to introduce His Son formally and officially to the nation of Israel, God chose a homeless, uncouth, unkept, politically incorrect, socially eccentric, and poorly educated water baptizer known as John the Baptist. And one word summarized his message … “Repent!”
10 - The Teenage God-Man
March 10, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 2:39–52
When we speak of child prodigies our default reaction as Christians should be to point to Luke 2:41-52 where a 12-year-old Jesus is found by his parents in the temple asking and answering theological questions, listening and understanding theological debate, as mingled among the religious Ph.D.’s of his day. But unlike the child prodigies we tend to celebrate today, a teenage Jesus was actually more than that! In point of fact, he wasn’t a prodigy at all insomuch as he was a child perfected. Jesus Christ, in other words, was absolute perfection in the flesh, even as a prepubescent kid.
09 - The Testimony of Simeon Anna
March 3, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 2:22–39
Simeon and Anna were far from spring chickens. They were advanced in age, which is to say they were very old, especially Anna. Between them these two Senior Saints had amassed a lifetime of wisdom. They had both persevered through a lifetime of trials and temptation. They were a living link to the past. They had a righteousness that came from long life experience. As Oldtimers, they were instrumental to the vitality of fellowship at the Temple, showing themselves to be the most committed and devout followers. As such, God used these two Senior Saints to bear testimony to the Christ Child. In Simeon and Anna, we see just how prominent, pivotal, and practical the elderly are in God’s economy.
08 - The Birth of Jesus Christ
February 25, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 2:1–20
Waiting is one of the most difficult things to do. Israel had to wait 900 years—through two captivities and under the domination of five successive world powers—for God to make good on His promise to David; that from his offspring the Messiah would one day come. And at just the right time, says the apostle Paul in Galatians 4:4-5, when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman. It was the right time religiously, it was the right time culturally, it was the right time politically, and it was the right time demographically.
07 - The Benedictus: Zechariah's Song
February 18, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 1:67–80
While historians debate the most important event, person, or object to impact the history of humankind, believers know that the incarnation of Jesus Christ and his coming into the world stands second to none. And it’s this particular monumental event in history that Zachariah, the priest and father of John the Baptist, has in mind in Luke 1:67-80 when he bursts out into a song of praise and worship. He does so because he’s overcome by the awesomeness God and all that God had done throughout history for His people Israel (particularly through the Davidic and Abrahamic covenants)—and even more—by what He was about to do for the history of the whole world through the birth of the Christ to come (the New covenant). And it would all start with the birth of Zachariah’s own son, John, who would play a pivotal part in preparing the way. It’s the story of Jesus and redemption through him, starting first with the birth of John the Baptist as the forerunner, that is the crux of all human history.
06 - The Birth of John the Baptist
February 4, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 1:57–66
In biblical times, names actually meant something beyond just sounding nice. Often a child would be named in honor of an event that took place at the time of their birth or based for some sort of unique physical characteristic that the child possessed at birth. To that end, often times God would sovereignly change a person’s name well into adulthood either to reflect their new identities as believers or their new calling as His ambassadors. In the case of John the Baptist, he was named John, meaning "God is gracious." That name mattered because not only was it the chosen name that the angel Gabriel had commanded Zachariah to give to the child but because it also reflected God’s gracious salvation, in which John would figure prominently as the Messiah’s forerunner.
05 - The Magnificat: Mary's Song
January 28, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 1:46–55
Mary's song of thanksgiving and praise in response to the news that she would be the mother of the Christ-child is remarkable for both its theology and its use of the Old Testament. Because she received God’s grace as one who was favored by Him, she rejoiced that God had graciously delivered her from her wretched estate. Thus, in saving her, God became her Savior. She wasn’t immaculately conceived, she didn’t live a sinless life nor remain a perpetual virgin throughout her adulthood, and she most certainty was not and is not the co-redemptrix of sinners who warrants our praise and prayers. She was a sinner saved by grace, and for which she was most thankful.