Luke

37 - The Parable of the Soils

November 17, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 8:4–15

Among many other reasons, to help his disciples better understand the cause of Israel’s unbelief and growing rejection, Jesus gave them an explanatory parable drawn directly from the agricultural world of the first century. Known as the Parable of the Soils (or Sower), Jesus draws a parallel between the different types of soil in which a farmer has to work with the different type of human hearts in which the Holy Spirit tends. Three types of soils (hearts) prove to be condemnable, leading to eternal ruin, and only one is deemed to be good, which leads to eternal life.

01 - Introduction - The Son of Man

December 17, 2023 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 1:1–4

Luke wrote his gospel from the perspective of a Gentile writing to another Gentile, named Theophilus, about Jesus being the Son of Man. Despite his anonymity, we see in the first four verses of his prologue a few elements that hint at, or point to, the type of Christian man that Luke was. They are both implicit and explicit. In addition to being a physician (Col. 4:14), Luke is revealed to be a biographer, a historian, and a theologian who took it upon himself to write the most expansive, complete, and thorough gospel on greatest story ever told—the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

02 - The Parents of John the Baptist

December 31, 2023 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 1:5–13, Luke 1:18–25

In writing to Theophilus, it was essential that Luke begin the saga of salvation with the forerunner, John the Baptist. His story is the tie that binds the Old and New testament together. He’s the last of the prophets to come the order of the Old Testament but the first to grace the pages of the New Testament. Most significantly, the story of John the Baptist established that he was in fact the divinely prophesied forerunner to the Messiah. His testimony concerning Jesus, therefore, carried a lot of weight and verified that Jesus was in fact the Christ. And John’s story first begins with his godly parents, an aged priest named Zechariah and his barren wife Elizabeth, and how God broke 400 years of silence in Israel with a personal revelation to them about the miraculous birth of their son that was to soon come.

03 - The Greatness of John the Baptist

January 14, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 1:14–17

The life of John the Baptist had none of the trappings that the world associates with greatness. He was born into a common family, to a common people, on a common hillside in Judea. He was not associated with any of the official institutions of his day. But the world’s evaluation of John the Baptist completely missed the mark. No less than an authority than the Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate himself, testified in Matthew 11:11 that John was the greatest man to live up until that time. He was without equal. He was without rival. He was without comparison. And it was John's physicality (separation), spirituality (empowerment), and prophetic position (forerunner) that made him great.

04 - The Sign of the Christ to Come

January 21, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 1:26–44

Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel and the unbelievable news that she would be the mother of the Christ child without ever physically knowing a man, puts her in a league of her own. Mary didn’t violate Deuteronomy 6:16 and put God to the test when the angel told her the news and demand evidence. She didn’t say, “Prove it, God”; she took Him at His word. However, although Mary didn’t ask for a sign, God, knowing just how startling and unsettling the news was to hear, gave her one anyway. And that sign, the miraculous pregnancy of her barren cousin, Elizabeth, was proof-positive that all that Gabriel had told her would indeed come to pass. Mary’s meeting with Elizabeth turned out to be the proof that the first Christmas morning was coming at long last.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!”

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.

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.

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.

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The Son Of Man