Just like you, Jesus blew his nose.

Steve Brown:
Just like you, Jesus blew his nose. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life. We’re here to communicate the freeing truth that God’s not mad at his children. Steve invited our friend Justin Holcomb to teach us all this week. Justin is a priest, a seminary professor, and he’s written, co authored, or edited more than 20 books.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. If you’re just joining us, we’re having a wonderful time this week. Bishop Justin Holcomb is here. Doctor, I don’t know what to call you anymore. Your eminence? Do I have to kiss your ring? What is this?

Justin Holcomb: I don’t have my ring on, but you could kiss it. And you could call me your grace, your holiness. I’ll take

Steve Brown:
You could take any of those, and they all apply. Justin Holcomb is also a voice of Key Life. But one of the wonderful things about Justin is his daughter, Sophia. And she’s done a lot of the research for this week of programs on the Gospels. And, she, Sophia is a delight. She really is. And we invited her to participate. We also told her that if these programs bombed, it would be her fault. But if they were really good, it would be us that did it. So, we’re talking about Luke this time. Talk about Luke Justin.

Justin Holcomb: We’re going through each one of the gospels. And thanks to Sophia’s research again, you know, we, after school, she’d come over and talk and she’d tell me about stuff in class and she’s highlighting all these things that are unique about each gospel. And I thought, man, I’ve, I must’ve forgotten this or I never knew it. And it’s a really cool feeling when you’re a 14 year old daughter is the word of God to you and pointing out stuff. And so, we thought, I would love to do this as a recording. So, she actually worked up a bunch of notes on these things. And so, this week we’re going through different gospels and what’s distinctive in each gospel. In Luke, but first, just a few things about Luke, it’s written by Luke, hence the name. Luke was not one of the disciples, but he traveled with Paul. He also wrote Luke and Acts together, but the theme of each week is actually coming from Sophia. And the theme of this one is what about Luke, that he, what about Jesus.

Sophia: That Jesus is fully human and a Savior. So, he’s both fully human and God at the same time, but he’s really emphasizing Jesus’ humanity.

Justin Holcomb: So, Jesus’ humanity is key. That is really important for all of us to hear because as Christians, we know, okay, Jesus is God, Jesus is God, Jesus is God. But for some people, it’s really hard. He’s fully human, but without sin. So, he’s a sinless human, but he was fully human and he was tempted. So, but Sophia, this is what we were unpacking. What’s the, what’s the significance of him being fully human?

Sophia: It’s so significant because Jesus did what we couldn’t do for ourselves and failed doing, but he did it on our behalf. And he saved all of humanity because he was fully human, but also fully God.

Justin Holcomb: So, being fully human because humans sinned, humans had the debt, and so therefore a human had to pay the debt. But he fulfilled the law as a human on our behalf and secured the benefits of God’s favor and gave that to us and represented us on the cross. And so, Jesus being fully human is actually necessary for our salvation. But the reason we know he’s fully human is because of something that’s distinctive to Luke. What is distinctive to Luke, Sophia?

Sophia: So, in Luke, there’s the infancy narratives, which is describing Jesus’ childhood, his birth. And just the beginning of his life, which was specific to this gospel.

Justin Holcomb: Yeah. So, Luke 1, all the way through Luke 2:52, and this is something every year, Steve, that you read at the Christmas show.

Steve Brown:
I do.

Justin Holcomb: And so, that’s why I wanted to pull this one out. But it’s noteworthy because it’s something that we all think about at Christmas, like, oh, okay, the birth narrative, that’s nice. Why did Luke put that there? Luke put this extended birth narrative at the very beginning to show Jesus was born from a woman. He was very vulnerable. He was born in this way, so it’s highlighting his humanity. All of Luke is, Luke firmly believes that Jesus is God, but that’s not his point. His point is that Jesus was also, in addition to God, fully human. That’s what he’s underlining, that’s what he’s highlighting. And the birth narrative is probably the easiest way. But all the other things throughout Luke, Jesus does miracles and all these things in the power of the Spirit. Luke portrays Jesus as a Spirit filled human who does things by the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s what, and all throughout Acts too.

Steve Brown:
And we have access to the same thing he had access to.

Justin Holcomb: The very Spirit that raised Him from the dead and empowered Him indwells us. And that’s the point of Luke and Acts. If you put them together, Luke is saying Jesus was a Spirit filled human, who’s also God, and did amazing things in the power of the Spirit. Oh, by the way, in Acts, the apostles and other Christians after them are Spirit filled humans, though sinful and not God, and they do marvelous things by the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s the whole point of Luke and Acts together.

Steve Brown:
And Jesus said greater works than I do you’re going to do because I’m going to be with the Father so, go, you go bro.

Justin Holcomb: And and he empowers His people to do things, He empowers us for our sanctification, He empowers us for ministry that comes from us.

Steve Brown:
Oh, it’s so true. It’s how I became a spiritual giant.

Justin Holcomb: The Spirit is mighty in you Steve. Something that’s also noteworthy in luke, but also Acts. Let’s go to Acts real quick because we talked about this a few months ago. The Holy Spirit is poured out on different groups of people through all Acts. It’s Jews, then it’s Samaritans who are considered half breeds by everybody, then Gentiles, so you have this ever expanding scope of the Spirit being poured out on certain people, the same thing’s happening in the gospel of Luke. There’s all kinds of people that are included in Luke’s gospel. Children, who were not really taken seriously in this time. Women, who were seen as property and second class citizens. The poor and the disenfranchised. And so, he’s talking about the outcast, the poor, foreigners, women and children. And so, what you see in Luke is the inclusive expanse of God’s mercy to all kinds of people, which is reverberating all throughout Acts also, and which is something that you have highlighted in your ministry and what we try to celebrate here at Key Life is that, everyone thinks that they’re not included into the circle and the whole point of Luke and the rest of the Bible. But Luke is really saying, no, all types of people, people who you don’t think you belong which is a great place to start because those are the people Jesus made a beeline to. And Luke is really emphasizing that part too.

Steve Brown:
Oh, man, that’s so good. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done, what you’re smoking, who you’ve hurt, you run to Jesus and the Jesus of Luke, the emphasis is your invitation.

Justin Holcomb: Well, and this was the beautiful part. I mean, Luke 15, that’s a famous passage. People hear that and go, okay, why is that famous? Oh, it’s the lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost son. And in every single one of them, what’s beautiful about this is that Luke is using, the gospel of Luke uses very emotional terms to describe God’s relationship to his people and their response to him. There’s an article by B.B. Warfield called The Emotional Life of our Lord. And B.B. Warfield was a Princeton theologian. He wrote books on inspiration, but this article on the emotional life of our Lord, he says.

That Jesus is the depiction and embodiment of God’s compassion for his people.

And there’s more mention of singing in the Gospel of Luke than any other gospel. And it’s God’s tenderness and compassion being highlighted. And we see it most significantly in Luke 15, where what’s happening? There’s something that’s lost. These lost things are being found by the hero, the woman and the shepherd. And then the father is out looking for his son. Finally, the son out of desperation says, well, I’ll go back and work for my dad. And he’s like, and before he could even get the offer out of his lips, dad, he’s been practicing dad, I know I’ve really screwed up. I’d like to be one of your hired servants. And he gets to his father and the father’s depicting God, the Father who lifts up his robes to run to his son, which is an undignified thing for a father to do in this culture. He should have just cut off his head right there and walked away from him, but instead he lifts his robes, run to him and he’s basically, he puts his hand over his mouth and says, I don’t want your horrible offer. You’re my son. You’re not my servant.

Steve Brown:
Oh man.

Justin Holcomb: And so, you see this, this is in Luke 15. I mean, this is what Luke is trying to do. The last thing is, which I think embodies everything, Sophia, would you just, I mean, honestly, if we run out of time, that’s fine, but if you could read Luke 18, this is the point that I think, Luke wants to make about Jesus in his gospel.

Steve Brown:
Okay.

Sophia:

Jesus told this parable. “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, stood up and prayed about himself. ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the other men, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ but the tax collector, stood at a distance, he would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Steve Brown:
Oh my, that is so, thank heavens. Oh man, I hope that’s true. I wouldn’t doubt that we all said that one time. After one of the teachers that this guy I was teaching there, it was in Texas last month, and he said, after somebody preached the gospel, the first thing he did, he got up and said, Oh man, I hope that’s true. It is true.

Justin Holcomb: This is shocking. First, Jesus uses the language of justified.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Justin Holcomb: Meaning, you’ve been made right with God. How did this tax collector, go back to where Matthew, just a few days ago, Matthew teaching. A tax collector is made right with God because he basically just said have mercy on me? That’s all God wants is humble repentance? Not obedience?

Steve Brown:
That’s it. That’s enough. And that’ll do it. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve Brown and Justin Holcomb. Always fun when they teach together and I think they’re taking it to another level this week with this meditation on the Gospels. Still one more amazing day ahead of us in this conversation, and I know you’ll want to hear that. So, we’ll see you right here tomorrow. Hey, have you been to keylife.org lately? If not, hope you’ll stop by. A lot of great stuff happening there. There’s keylife.org/simplysermons that’s our latest podcast, and it features fully remastered sermons from Steve, there’s no commercials, there’s no interruptions. What a great way to spend your daily commute, right? And if you’re looking for a new read, stop by keylife.org/store there you’ll find all of Steve’s books and even a few by Justin, his new devotional God With Us is phenomenal. And of course, all of our content is still free thanks to the generous support of listeners, just like you. If you’d like to donate, just call 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. If you’d like to send your donation by mail, just go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses or e-mail [email protected]. You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. And of course now you can give safely and securely through text. Just text Key Life to 28950 and then follow the instructions. Again, Key Life, one word, two words. It doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.