so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.that you might know the certainty concerning the things in which you were instructed.That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed.
4 sermons cite this verse
And let's start in verse number one. you most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. I want to preach in first, in the first week of this series, I want to preach a message right down the title. It's called God Moves First, You Decide What Comes Next. But if you didn't know this about God. God is the ultimate initiator. In fact, our role as believers is simply to respond to God because God is the God of initiation. In fact, the Bible says before we ever loved God, God first loved us. And so whatever you decide to do next will determine the outcome. But just a heads up, God is the initiator. And I like that because you and I, we got to respond all the time. Somebody texts you, you got to think, am I going to respond to this? You ever get a text, you're like, this requires way too much thought and attention. I'm going to get back to this, but you ain't never get back to this. …
… for some time past to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. There was a conference this week in Boston, the Evangelical Theological Society. I don't know how many hundreds, maybe numbering in the thousands of academics gather to hear papers, give some papers, meet, network. We had several people from RTS who went. I was there, Chad, Blair, Will, Pastor Eric went. So Christ's covenant was well represented. And you may remember that Tricia and I met when we were at school in Boston's North Shore. So I do like New England and it was, there were three beautiful fall New England days. It was cold, kind of like fall should be. Cold enough that the allergens seemed to have died, which was a nice reprieve for me. And got up in the morning and went on a run down Commonwealth and into the Boston Commons and to Park Street and back around, and it was beautiful. …
… this is so powerful, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. In other words, Theophilus, so that you will know you've not been asked to have faith in faith or belief in belief, believe in belief, that these events, these things you've heard, this event, this person you have placed your faith in, It is anchored to something that actually happened. And so I wanna give you an orderly account. Now again, this is so important. Luke is not writing the Bible. Luke has no idea there will ever be a compilation of manuscripts called the Bible. He's just saying, here's what happened among us. He's telling us what happened. So at the very beginning of his gospel, he describes the birth of Jesus. And then after that, he introduces us to the warmup act, the pregame show, John the baptizer. We talked about John last week and the important question people ask him. And then John introduces all the world, or specifically John introduces Jesus to Judea, the region of Judea. …
… So that, he says, the reason I put all this together, he says, Theophilus, is so that you may know the certainty of the things that you have been taught. And suddenly we are invited into the story. We're invited into the story because many of you have been taught to follow Jesus as a child or even a young adult, and maybe you're a new Christian. And so like Theophilus, it's like, okay, I believe and it's impacted my life, but I would love for somebody to put the whole thing together for me so I know with certainty, I can have certainty in terms of what I actually believe so that we can be assured that what we believe is anchored to something, anchored to history, actually anchored to what happened. So we're jumping in. Three chapters into the gospel of Luke. Luke, and I'm gonna ask you a question. You can answer this one out loud. Luke actually introduces us to Jesus's pregame show, the warmup act. …