Do You Struggle To Understand Who Jesus Really Is?

He is perhaps the most widely known yet profoundly misunderstood person who ever lived. Who is the real Jesus? Is he lowly, meek and mild or an impassioned revolutionary? Is Jesus the incarnate son of God, or simply a wise and moral teacher? After 2000 years, reality has frequently been clouded by fiction, fantasy and fable. And yet the truth of Jesus is available in a text that is both historically sound and objectively reliable, the Gospel of Luke. Join us as Preston Trail embarks on a year long journey through Luke's account of the life and times of Jesus. We'll examine his beginnings, his backstory, his popularity, the opposition that led to his death, but was only the end of the beginning. And the resurrection that resulted in a whole new beginning for us all. As you uncover the truth of the real Jesus, you'll find the source of your own story's significance.

I am so glad to see you today, and that it is starting to feel a little bit like Christmas. We've got trees, we're singing Christmas carols, we're talking about the Christmas services on December 23 and 24. We don't quite have Christmas weather if you're looking for something colder, but hey, you're in Texas. And this is about what it's like October, November, December, January, February, March, April. So this is kind of the seven month thing. But it's nice. Okay? And I'm not really into snow or snowmageddon. So this is good weather for me, even at Christmas. Really glad you're here with us as we are beginning to move into this whole new series called, The Real Jesus. So whether you're online joining us or live, this is going to be a great opportunity for us to draw close to Christ.

Simon Sinek is a world famous business consultant leader who often talks about the importance of knowing your, why. Doesn't matter what the topic is, work, marriage, parenting, vacation, whatever it is, know your, why. He says we get to the, what, easily without thinking. We even get to the, how, without thinking. But it's only when we know the why, that life makes sense. Well, today I want to focus on the, why, behind The Real Jesus series. If we don't understand the, why, it will not make sense, what we're doing and you'll go, ah, big deal. I hope afterwards you'll say, big deal.

So question one. Why this series? After all Jim Johnson and I have never taught in our 19 here through one of the gospels from beginning to end. We've just never done that. And if we're doing it now, it must be really important. And it is. Here's why, because we want the Preston Trail family to spend one year with Jesus. One year with the Lord. Now, technically it's 11 months, 48 weeks, from the 1st of December, 2021 through the end of October, 2022. But Hey, I'm calling it a year. I invite you to call it a year with me as well.

We're going to be talking about where Jesus came from, how he came into this world, about his infancy, his childhood, his early adulthood, about that pivotal moment when he was 30 years old, when he moved from the quiet life of a carpenter in privacy to the public figure in Galilee, that attracted attention, both good and bad. We're going to talk about the turning point events of his life, baptism, temptation in the wilderness, calling his disciples, the miracles he performed, the teachings that he gave, his transfiguration when he was up on a mountaintop and two guys that had been dead for several hundred years, Moses and Elijah, all of a sudden showed up and began talking to him. That would do something to my faith. The last supper, the arrest, the trials, crucifixion, resurrection, all of that is a part of this story.

Now you may say, okay, Paul, that sounds pretty good because I like Jesus. I want to learn more. Or you might even say, I love Jesus and I want to love him more, but I got some questions for you, Paul. I'm a little hesitant. And here are the questions you might be asking.

First, are we really going to dedicate one whole year to one gospel? And the answer is, yes, we are. But not all at once. Little by little, step by step, bite size piece by bite size step, week by week. And every time we take a baby step, one week. That gets us to the next week. And pretty soon before you know it, you will have an understanding of the life of Jesus that will make you the kind of disciple that you have always wanted to be.

Another question you might be asking is, isn't Luke really long. Like I was thumbing through my Bible on it, checking on it the other day, or I had my phone out and I was scrolling through it and it kept going. It's forever. It's the longest book I've ever seen in my life. Well, that depends on what you want to define as long. It is the longest of the four gospels, which makes it also the longest book in the new Testament, about 28,000 words. And for all of you here thinking, 28,000 words, but that's like War and Peace or something, isn't it? No. 28,000 words. Well, it's a little shorter than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and a little longer than the Pulitzer prize, winning, intellectual foray called The Mouse and the Motorcycle. So parents, if you read any of those books to your kids, it doesn't take that long. In fact, it takes about 90 minutes to read through Luke's gospel. And we're taking 11 months or 48 weeks or one year to read it through. So it will be something that we slowly grow into.

Although I do recommend that sometime before December 25 or after December 25, that you set us side 90 minutes, one chunk of time, 90 minutes and you read Luke from beginning to end, just so you're ready for the rest of this series. And along the way, we're going to give you practical guidelines that will help you navigate your way. For example, right now we have an advent devotional for these four messages that are kicking off the gospel of Luke in December, that you can find easily on our app. Just go to your phone, look at the app and that's exactly where it's going to be.

Also, when we come back after Christmas holidays on the 1st of January, we're going to have a daily devotional guide that will help you go deeper every week, so you can read ahead and be ready for what we're going to be talking about on the upcoming Sunday.

Now you may have a third question which is like this, okay, Paul, what if I start strong but I get interrupted? Life is full of interruptions and you can't predict that my life is going to be a piece of cake. No I can't. No. You may be even saying, what if a new COVID variant hits with a new Greek letter that they've never heard of in the entire history of the world? And what if I end up having to actually teach my kids at home again? Horror of horrors. Okay. I know I can't predict that. I hope all of that is... I'm not predicting. But if you say, that would really interrupt my life. I don't know if I could stick with this.

Or in a more serious note, what if one of my family members ends up in the hospital and is there for weeks? Denise just read to me a post last night about one of our friends at Preston Trail we love so much and she's been in the hospital for three weeks with her daughter and she's ready for everything to be a little bit more normal in her life. And if that happens to you, you think, now, Paul, that's a serious interruption. Or what if God leads you to a new job and it's a new city and a new town and a new set of friends, and a new church, you go, how in the world could I keep up with Luke? Well, here's all I'll say to you. No matter how much your life is interrupted in 2022, if you'll stay faithful to reading through the gospel of Luke, Luke will be your navigator for this whole next year and Jesus will be the constant, constant content in the midst of all of your flux and all of the changes that you can't control.

Second question, why The Real Jesus? After all, calling this title, The Real Jesus, assumes that there is a false Jesus out there somewhere or many. And I thought about how do I say false Jesus in the plural. False Jesus just sounds weird. That played around with, I thought, is it like false Jesi. But that sounds like Jedi. So I'm not going there. So now the false Jesus in popular culture comes in many different forms. For example, there's the Jesus who's imaginary, not real, just made up, in our minds only. This comes to us when we read fairy tales to our kids, once upon a time and the Grimm brothers are it clear, it's upon a time. It's not in time. It's made up. Or the greatest space fantasy of all time, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. We sometimes think, well, Jesus is kind of like that.

And I know, I hate to have to give you the spoiler alert today for the possibility that Star Wars is not literally a story in real space and time. And for all of you to who are upset about that and you feel like I've really pulled the plug on your fantastic imagination and on your own sense of reality in life, I'm happy for you to criticize, me happy if you send me ugly a email. Just address it, jim@prestontrail.org, and I'll be happy to respond to anything you send. Easy to think that Jesus is imaginary, not real, very popular for people to say that.

Another false Jesus is that Jesus is real, but he's just an ordinary human, a great teacher, no doubt, just like the Robin Williams character in Dead Poets Society. What a teacher. Jesus was just like that, but no more.

Or he is a good man, like Gandhi, clearly one of the greatest humans in the 20th century and Jesus is just, he's good like that. Or maybe he's a great teacher and a good man, but he had a tragic death, like this painting of Socrates who was required by the Athens leaders to drink hemlock poison. Why? Because he was corrupting the minds of young Athenian teenagers by giving them new ways to think clearly and logically. So maybe that's all Jesus was, a great teacher, a good man with a tragic death.

Third option is that Jesus is real, but that he can access superhuman powers. He's real and he's human, but he kind of can go superhuman from time to time. And I thought, I don't know the right characters, but what came to my mind was Thor. I mean, that's the closest you can get to somebody that is basically real, in someone's mind and has superhuman powers.

Okay. Friends, all of these views of Jesus are baseless. They are simply figments of our imagination. But there is a real Jesus. And he is the true Jesus found in the four gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all purport to tell the true story of Jesus based on eyewitness testimonies, who could give evidence in the court of law if they had to and could tell true stories to their friends who would pass along those true stories.

Now, three of those gospels came from eyewitnesses without a doubt. Matthew is one of Jesus' 12 followers. He was with Christ. He could write authoritatively. So was John. And while Mark, probably the first gospel written, was not a traveler with Jesus, in 135 AD, about a hundred years after Jesus was crucified and raised, an early church leader said that everything he had heard was that Simon Peter took Mark under his wing after Paul and Barnabas had the split and Paul no longer required Mark to go with them. Simon Peter took mark under his wing and everywhere Simon Peter went and preached, Mark took notes, and that became the source of the gospel. Well, if that's true, which I think it is, and if you say, well, how do you know that Peter wrote or was behind Mark's gospel? I don't, but go read chapter 16 of Mark's gospel. And you'll read something incredible.

When the women go to the tomb and the angels are there and the angels say to them that he has risen, only in Mark's gospel do you get this phrase, "Go tell the disciples and Peter that he has risen." Nowhere else, just there. So I think that you got Matthew, Mark and John, you've got eyewitness testimony behind those whole gospels. Now what about Luke? Well, Luke was never present with Jesus. But what he was, was an investigator. Not a detective investigator, a historical investigator. Over and over, Luke just simply researched the life of Jesu and is the first great Christian historian who wrote down all that he was able to uncover. We need the real Jesus. The false Jesus is a lie and cannot do one single thing for us.

So now that leads us to the third question. Why Luke? I've already said there were four choices. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Why Luke? Well, the first reason is because Luke wrote more of the New Testament than any other author, on the assumption that he wrote Acts as well, which I'll come back to in a moment, word count in Luke and word count in Acts equals 27% of the New Testament. Shouldn't we as followers of Jesus who love the New Testament and its teachings about how to follow Christ, shouldn't we care about the person who wrote the very most in the entire New Testament? I think we should. He has gotten little attention over the years. So we're going to pay a whole lot of attention to this person who wrote the most in all the New Testament.

A second great reason why Luke, is because Luke gives the fullest account of Jesus' life. And when I mean the fullest account, I mean, first off, the nativity story. Now that's what we're going to be working on these weeks and December and the first week back in January. All those stories in Luke one and two that tell about Jesus and John the Baptist and their predictions from the angel about their birth and how they came into this world. It opens up with Elizabeth and Zechariah, an old couple who'd never been able to have kids. And an angel appears to Zechariah and says, your wife's going to have a baby. And Zechariah says, not possible, she's barren.

And the angel said, no, God said so. And Zechariah says, I don't believe him. And the angel said. And what that means is, he zipped his lip, made him mute. And for nine months, while his wife is pregnant with a miracle baby, he can't talk. I know, this is real stuff. And it's a dream come true for all of you women who are pregnant, for your husband not to say a word. And of course it goes on into later in chapter one, where Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel and is told you're the one to bring into the world, the son of God.

And then further you get into chapter two, you have the birth of Jesus, which of course we'll be celebrating specifically at our Christmas services, the 23rd and 24th. And then you have this passage that we often forget where on the eighth day of Jesus' life, Mary and Joseph bring him up from Bethlehem to the temple in Jerusalem. I got to tell you, the new cover on my phone, my new wallpaper is a picture of Denise and me just embracing on the Southern steps of the temple. We just got back from Israel a couple of weeks ago. And the Southern steps of the temple obviously face south. Temple was a huge temple Mount with steps going all four directions.

And the Southern temple steps going south were the primary way to enter an exit of the temple for people coming from any direction. But they're the obvious way that if you're coming from the south, seven miles up from Bethlehem, that you would enter the temple. And I can just pitch, and we could just picture Mary holding the little baby eight year old in her arms and Joseph helping her up those steps, where we stood and they get inside and an old man named Simeon and an old woman named Anna look right at Mary and Joseph and say, we've been waiting for this our whole lives. In fact, Simeon says, I can die now. I've waited for the Messiah and here he is. Okay. That's just the nativity stories.

Luke is so full and complete in his life, he also tells about Jesus as a pre-teen. All of you parents relax. Jesus did not go from birth to 30 years old. No, he was a child and he was a pre-teen. And the story we have in Luke, chapter two, about him being 12 years old, let me tell you right now he was Mr. Independence. So if your child ever says to you, I can be as independent as I want. I'm acting like Christ. You can go on and put them in time out, but they're telling you the truth because he was super independent at that moment, for a good reason.

Also, in terms of Jesus' teachings, there are more parables in Luke's gospel than anywhere else. 24 alone in Luke's gospel. And 18 of those are found only in Luke. You can't find him in Matthew and Mark or in John. For example, if you love the parable of the prodigal son, that's only in Luke. If you love the parable of the persistent widow, where she wears out that evil judge with her persistence, until he finally gives her justice, that's only found in Luke. And then above all, you've got the compassion of Jesus. No gospel shows Jesus' compassion at such a deep level. And let me give you a couple examples of what I mean by compassion. This is always for people that are overlooked, ignored, hated, and who fall between the cracks of society. So if you've ever been overlooked, ignored, hated, or fall between the cracks of society, you're going to love this Jesus.

Example. One in chapter seven, Jesus encounters a sinful woman. Here's the storyline. Jesus has been invited by a Pharisee to eat dinner with him. And Jesus is the guest of all honor. So there they are. The Pharisees, very hyper religious Jewish leaders are around the table with Jesus. It's out in their courtyard, not inside the home, out in the courtyard where more people can fit and the courtyard opens up onto a street. Well, the woman begins walking down the street. She's disheveled. It says she's a sinful woman, which means she's a prostitute, sexually out of bounds. And would've been considered as trash and totally evil by all of the good Pharisees who were so super religious. Well, she hears Jesus and she's probably heard him before. And she kind of wanders into that courtyard. And I'm sure everybody's eyes get as big as saucers, like, don't let her in here. But she comes in anyway, unbidden and she stands behind Jesus as he teaches.

And she gets so caught that when she hears his words of grace and kindness, tears begin to roll down her cheeks and they splash onto his feet. Awkward. Then she gets down on her knees, takes down her long hair and begins to dry his feet with her hair. Awkward again. Then she takes this vile of perfume she has to make her smell so be and alluring and she pours it out all over Jesus' feet. Awkward for the third time. Now, no doubt the religious leaders are saying, Jesus, what in the world are you doing letting a woman like that touch you?

And his answer is so classic. He said, actually, she's the only one who welcomed me here appropriately. My feet were hot and tired and dirty and not one of you washed my feet, but she washed them with her tears. And since you didn't wash them, you wouldn't dry them, but she'd dried them with her hair. And whenever anyone comes to your home, you always put oil and perfume on them, kind of as a refresher. She poured that on my feet. And then he concluded by saying, if you've been forgiven little, you love little. But if you've been forgiven a lot, you love a lot.

Now that's just one story, showing how Jesus shows compassion on the least, the lost, the last, the lonely, and any other L word you want to put in there that matches. Or you get to chapter 10 and Jesus tells a story about a good Samaritan, which by the way, is a contradiction in terms for Jews at that time. It's an oxymoron. A Samaritan is not good. How can the sermon title be called a good Samaritan? It would be today like a mother or father who's an Israeli telling their children a story and making the hero of it, a good Palestinian. It just doesn't exist, or vice versa for that matter.

In that same chapter 10, you've got the story of Jesus and Mary and Martha. They have invited Jesus to come and be guests of honor at their home. And they're like family, Mary, Martha Lazarus, just like Jesus family, just five miles away from Jerusalem. And that's where he stayed often on the weekends. Well, in this particular setting, he was there for a meal and Martha was putting the meal together and she went from Martha of the first century to Martha Stewart. And she was running around the house, getting everything exactly ready, table right, meal right. And she wanted her sister to help, her younger sister. This is clearly an older sister in charge, telling the sister, come help me. But every time she finds Mary, Mary is doing the amazing thing, the unheard of thing of sitting at Jesus's feet, which is a technical word for letting a rabbi teach you and you're his disciple.
Well, Martha was so ticked off because all she's thinking is, Mary, I need your help. And there's not supposed to be a woman in here. You know where a woman's place is. Get in the kitchen with me. And so then she comes and scolds Jesus. Talk about nerve. Good gracious. Well, she comes in and she unloads on Jesus and says teacher, teacher, don't you know that Mary's supposed to be helping me in here. And Jesus said, oh, Martha, Martha, you are worried about so many things. But Mary's chosen one and it's the right thing. A woman who felt called to be a disciple, a Samaritan who stopped and helped, an immoral woman who heard words of grace, Jesus' compassion is on full display in Luke's gospel.

The third reason why Luke, is because Luke places Jesus on the stage of world history in real space and time, in a place called Palestine, in a larger place called the Roman Empire at the time that we would call the first century AD.

Let me give you a couple of examples. To set up Jesus' birth in Luke chapter two, these are the words that Luke uses. And notice how many historical and geographical references he gives here to pin the time down. At that time, the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria. All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem and Judea, David's ancient home.

So he said, well, when was Jesus born? Well during the time of Caesar Augustus, not Julius Caesar and not Vespasian or Nero or any of the others, but when Caesar Augustus was king of the whole Roman empire. He died in 27 ad. So sometime before that. He ruled for about 30 years. So sometime before that. All right. And Quirinius was governor of Syria. And Joseph went down to Bethlehem. So this is real space, real time, real people, world history people. All right? Now to set up Jesus ministry, fast forward 30 years. And here's what he says in Luke three. Again, notice all the places and the times. It was now the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius, the Roman emperor. Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea, Herod Antipas was ruler over Galilee. His brother Philip was ruler over a hard word and another hard word. And another hard name was a ruler over Abilene.

Hey, Texas makes the Bible. And Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests. At this time, a message from God came to John, son and Zechariah, that's the baptizer, Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist, who was living in the wilderness.

Now, did you notice all those things? It's no longer Caesar Augustus. It's now Tiberius Caesar. It's no longer Quirinius up in Syria. It is Pontius Pilate who only had a short term as Roman governor over Judea, because he was so well, just like what you're going to read in Luke's gospel sometime next fall, just to actually that kind of person. And so they eventually pulled him out of that role. Herod Antipas, the son of Harry The Great that tried to kill Jesus. He was the king of the Jews over this area. Annas and Caiaphas were the current high priest and the previous high priest, father-in-law, they kept it in the family. And it all happened in Palestine. And in the Roman empire, are you getting this? Jesus appeared in real space in real time, not once upon a time, not a long time ago in the galaxy far, far away. He appeared in the first century Roman empire at its very Zenith. But of course, this is exactly what Luke intended. He stated it clearly in his prologue.

The first four verses are one long sentence in the Greek. Thank God translated into English it made it many sentences. Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. So this is simple. Luke begins his story about Jesus by saying I'm not the first, others have written this before me. And when they wrote it, they went to eye witnesses who were there with Jesus, the earliest disciples who then taught what they knew and then experienced firsthand.

I know for a fact they've done this and I have seen those and they're good. Then he continues. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything that you were taught. Now notice in this situation, he is going beyond this. He says, I know other people wrote and they were good, but I'm going to write one that is carefully investigated from the very beginning, I will read what others have written. And I believe he used Mark and Matthew. And if you're thinking Paul, how do you know that Mark and Matthew preceded Luke in writing? Well, I don't, but logical analysis tells me that because Luke is filled with passages from Matthew and Mark and not vice versa. Which is great. I think God uses normal things.

God could zap a baby into existence. He says, no, let's put a man and woman together. Natural. Let nature take its course. So Luke got together a bunch of gospels already written, I think primarily Mark and Matthew. And he read them and said, now I know more. I'm going to add even more. He consulted eyewitnesses and I don't know who his key eyewitness was, but I have an idea it was Mary, the mother of Jesus. Because when you read chapter one and two, only a mother knows those things. It says he wrote an accurate account and he says that his intel was good. I want you to be certain of the truth. And he wrote it to a particular person, the most honorable Theophilus. Now that's the very same Theophilus that shows up in the first verse of the book of Acts.

In my first book, I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach. First book, Luke.

So you're saying, well, Theophilus, that's a weird name. What's it mean? Good question. Here's the answer, friend of God. Theos means God. Philus, Phileo, Philea is the Greek word for friendship love. So friend of God. Who is this Theophilus to whom Luke is writing his letter? Well, it may have been a very high ranking Greek official, most excellent Theophilus, who actually was a Christ follower and may well have been a patron of Luke and actually paid his way to write this. In other words, if you're going to sit down and do research, somebody's got to pay you for the time you're doing it. I mean, that's why so many books are written by professors or teachers because their university continues to pay them while they write. So who's going to pay Luke to write? Who's going to take care of all of his bills. Obviously a wealthy patron. This may be the man who's a believer, and his name was Theophilus, which means friend of God.

Of course the other answer, possible solution is that since Theophilus means, friend of God, it refers to Christians who are maybe meeting privately or secretly because of their fear of the Roman government exposing them and persecuting them, because I'm a friend of God. If you know Jesus, you're a friend of God. And so it's kind of a catchphrase where he said, oh, friend of God, meaning every who reads this story.

Bottom line, Luke, the historian tells Jesus story so majestically, that we were drawn to it to teach it over this next year. And just so you'll understand what the story arc of Jesus life looks like based on Luke, here it is. Beginnings is in four BC. If you're thinking now, wait a minute, Paul, you hadn't really done your study or that's a typo because Jesus was not born in four BC. He was born in zero or one. Remember there is no such thing as a year zero. It's not possible. Now we got that.

Four BC is the correct answer or most likely. And here's why. When Jesus was born, an unknown little Jewish boy to an unwed girl, in a backwater town of Bethlehem, I promise you that the calendars in Rome did not stop printing and immediately start organizing the whole history of the world around that little baby's birth. No one cared, no one noticed. It took 500 years and for the Roman empire to be more Christianized for someone to finally say, why don't we redo all of history and center it in Jesus? And so in the year 525 AD, the Bishop of Rome found a monk who was really good in math, not perfect, but really good, his name was little Dennis, I don't think he was the menace, but little Dennis, his real name is Dionysus, Dennis, exiguous, which means small. Little Dennis. And he said, you're great with math. I want you to re-sync the entire history of the world, our whole Roman calendar we've been using for centuries since the founding of Rome under Romulus and Remus. We want you to re-sync the whole thing according to Jesus' birth. And he goes, yes, sir.

And he went and spent years, decades just re-syncing all of history, so that Jesus' birth is the pivot point. The problem is, he was off by three or four years. And we know that because there are great events in world history that occurred three or four years earlier than this great events in BC that we actually know for a fact, like Herod's death. So take it from me if you will, Jesus was born around four BC. His backstory goes throughout his childhood for about 30 years up till 27. And by this time when he goes public man, is he popular. Everywhere he goes, people want to hear him.

But because of some things he says, he encounters opposition. And it goes down to the trough of troughs, the end of the beginning, where he is arrested, tried, beaten, crucified and by the grace of God, raised. And that's a new beginning.
So not only is that an outline of the gospel of Luke and the storyline, but is also the six sections of our message series. So right now we're in beginnings. The first of the year, we'll get into backstory, next spring, popularity, opposition later in the spring, the summer, the end of the beginning and next fall we'll be there.

So this is to help you feel like you're not reading a book with no chapter breaks. So those are the six chapter breaks.
Now there's one last question, right? Here it is. Why does this matter to me? Why should I care a bit about the gospel of Luke? And here are my answers.

Number one, anytime you read a gospel, you will encounter Jesus. He is not dead. He's not on a crucifix stuck on your wall. He is alive and well, thank you, raised from the dead, still alive, constantly in and out of our lives. And I'll tell you right now, if you read the Bible, he will walk across those pages or walk across your little screen right into your life. And he will talk to you and he will ask you questions and he will challenge you and he will encourage you and he will invite you to follow him wherever he goes.

Second, why does this matter? Because the goal of knowing more about Jesus is to know him personally, not just knowledge about, but knowledge about that leads to know him and the more you know him, the more you love him. Now, that's not true of all of us. Denise and I celebrate 44 years this December. There's some things along the way that she's learned about me. And she didn't say, wow, to know you is to love you. It's more like, wow, to know you is to learn more patience, right? It's just life. Not Jesus. The more you know about him, the more you know him. And the more you know him, the more you love him. And the more you love him, the more you trust him and obey him.

And third and finally, when you know Jesus' story, you start to find your place in it. This past week, I was listening to a podcast by Ian Morgan Cron who's a wonderful writer and podcaster and a Christian, a counselor, and a expert in the Enneagram world. And in this talk he said that the Enneagram is not just simply nine ways that we kind of describe our worldview, which is one of those nine ways and say, that's how I grew up, that's how I see the world. I'm not blaming anybody, but that kind of defines what I tend to do with my life without thinking about it. But he said, the nine Enneagram types actually describe the false narratives that you give to yourself. That is you tell yourself something and you keep believing it. And the truth is, all those false narratives, all those false identities were probably necessary when you're a child, they probably helped you survive. But you're an adult now, not a child. So how you get rid of those false narratives?

So without going through all of the Enneagram numbers, let me just say that if you're a one, two, three, seven or eight, you're going to identify with some of these statements. Okay? Here's what I mean by false narratives. Some of you are telling yourself every day, I must be perfect. And if I'm not perfect, I'm no good.

Others of you are telling on yourself, I must make others happy. My sole purpose in life is to keep them at peace and never make anyone angry. And if I don't, I'm useless.

Others of you are telling yourself, I must make myself happy, constantly. I must feel really, just high as a kite all the time. Either legally or illegally, whatever it takes, I want to feel good because I can't stand the thought of experiencing a bad emotion.

Others of you may be saying, I got to defend myself. Armor up today because people are out to get you every day of your life.
Or fifth, I got to win today, I got to win tomorrow. My life is just as valid as my last great victory. And friends, I want to tell you, those are five lies. There are many more that we tell ourselves. But Jesus says you don't have to believe those lies. And when you find yourself in Jesus' narrative, it will change everything about you. Where do you fit into Jesus' story? Remember that Jesus was born. Yeah. He was born for you. Remember that he was a little baby? He was a baby for you. Remember that he was a pre-teen and a teenager and a young adult. He was all of those things for you. Remember that he was baptized in the dirty Jordan river by John? Not because he needed to repent of sins, but to identify with sinners. Yeah, he was baptized for you. Remember when he went one to one, mano a mano against Satan in the wilderness for 40 days? He did that for you. Remember how he lived a God filled life that just simply reflected the beauty of the Lord? He did that for you.

He was arrested for you. He went on trial for you. He was condemned for you. He was beaten for you. He was crucified for you. Thank God, he was raised back to life for you. He went to heaven for you. He came back and he sent the spirit for you. And one day he will come again and hold you for himself along with all other believers for all time. And I'm telling you that is the true narrative that you need to live your life in. And if you will live your life in that narrative, you'll quit telling yourself lies, you'll quit living a life of constant frustration and confusion and you'll find in Jesus, the one person that you can always depend on, who created you for his glory and for his purposes. And that's what this journey in Luke is all about, to know Jesus more so you can love him more and find your place in his story. I sure hope you will join us for this journey. Don't miss it.

Let's pray. Jesus, when I think of all the good things that you have done for us and even your name itself, all I think of is how humble we all are and how surprised we all are, for crying out loud, that you allowed yourself to become human when you'd been in the form of God in eternity, forever, from the beginning. And yet you became a human for us. And you allowed yourself to be misunderstood when you could have cleared up everything if you'd wanted to. But you didn't.

And you never had to be beaten or go on trial or be crucified. You could call a legion of angels and taken out all of your enemies on the spot with violence, but you didn't. You're like a lamb led to slaughter for us as a sign of a love of God, and the victory of God and the purpose of God to pull together a people from around the world, of all nations, tribes, tongues and races, who will love the Lord in this world and forever.

And now Jesus, give us a vision of yourself this year in Luke and let us love you more and more and more. Through Christ, we pray.



Recorded in Frisco, Texas.