Luke is an old friend of mine. I’ll introduce you.

Steve Brown:
Luke is an old friend of mine. I’ll introduce you on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you’re sick of guilt and manipulation. And if you’re looking for an honest and thoughtful presentation of Biblical truth, you’ve come to the right place. This is Key Life with the founder of Key Life Network, Steve Brown. Keep listening for teaching that will make you free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. If you have your Bible open it to the first few verses of the first chapter of Acts, as we get this plane off the runway, on our trip that is going to take a very long time. We’re looking at the book of Acts and beginning a brand new series. And we’re, and we’re doing some introductory stuff. Whenever you start a new book in the Bible and every Bible teacher knows this, you’ve got to set the setting. You got to talk about when, where, who, what and that’s what we’re going to do. And the first thing you’ve gotta do, when you look at Acts is to look at the author. If you pick up a book and you read the cover and you look on the cover, there’s always a part of it that is devoted to who in the world wrote this book, so-and-so lives in so-and-so, serves as so-and-so was educated in so-and-so and is used in so-and-so in so many, whatever. And it’s there, well, that’s true here too. Luke doesn’t mention himself a lot, but you can know that he’s there everywhere, that he’s reporting things from people who actually saw these things. And sometimes he was even there with them. Seems to me that because we’re going to be studying what he wrote for a number of months, you ought to have an opportunity to meet the man who wrote the book of Acts. He’s a, as I’ve said, a very good friend of mine. In Latin, his name is Lucius. If you are Greek, it would be Lucas, but most of you know him is just good, old, plain Luke. Although Luke is mentioned only three times in the entire Bible, did you know that? Three times in the entire Bible, he’s one of the most unique and exciting individuals in all of Scripture. Next to the the apostle Paul, Luke wrote more of the New Testament than any other individual. Luke was just so you know, a Gentile by birth, he was Goyam. He was born to freed slaves in Antioch, a city in Asia Minor, founded in 290 BC by a Macedonian General, Calvary General of Alexander the Great, in honor of his father, Antiochus. I looked it up, you know, and if you’re ever asked something like that on a contest and you win some money, send part of it to Key Life. If a man in his whole lifetime, becomes proficient in one field of endeavor, society says, now that’s a success. Luke, the writer of Acts and the gospel of Luke was proficient in at least four areas. He was a world traveler. I mean, as you read through the book of Acts, you begin to see this guy knows the world. He’s been there. He’s done that. He could write a travel log about the entire world. He knows the world in the way we know how to get to the corner drug store. He knows the world and he makes observations on the world that you can’t get any other place. So he’s a world traveler, therefore he’s a success. But he’s also a physician. Paul calls him, and this is where there’s a title to a book, the beloved physician. That is a wonderful thing to say about Paul, about Luke, a physician, who fought a constant battle with pain and suffering and death. I think I may have mentioned David Seel, a physician in Korea. He’s in Heaven now, but he wrote a book, does My Father Know I’m Hurt? Well, Luke could have written a book and in some ways, Luke and also Acts are the two books that he wrote. And you could kind of title them, Does My Father Know I’m Hurt? So Luke was a physician and was in fact Paul’s personal physician. Thirdly, Luke was a nautical master who was familiar and proficient in the techniques of sailing. And when we get to it, we’re going to see that. I mean, where did he have time to do that? I barely have time to sit down and go over notes of a sermon, before I preach. I don’t have time to go to medical school or to find out about sailing. And besides the last time I went sailing, I went with a friend of mine, another preacher and I said, look, there’s something I don’t understand before we get in this boat. How can you get back to shore, if the wind is blowing you away from shore? I mean, we don’t have a motor in this thing and we could end up in China or something, or England or something. He said, don’t worry. You just tack. I said, tack, he said, yeah, tack. That’s how you play the wind, so you can be, get back to shore. So, we get out a long ways, you can barely see the shore, the winds blowing us further. And I said to him, tack. He said tack, I don’t know what that is? I just read it somewhere in a book. We ended up three towns down, down the way. I didn’t have time, I was a preacher, I didn’t know about, but Luke, man, he was a master at sailing. And then Luke was also, an incredible writer and historian. He surpassed some of the greatest writers of history, in history. He was read by some of the most powerful people of his time and our time. An amazing guy. And I’m running out of time. I’ll tell you a little bit more about him tomorrow, but you got to keep in mind the person who wrote the book of Luke and the book of Acts is, he’s something else. You are too. You think about that. Amen.
It’s Wednesday, and sometimes on Wednesdays, when I have a little bit of time, I spend the time answering one or two questions. By the way, as always, Pete will be in on Friday and we’ll spend the entire broadcast answering questions. That’s one of our favorite times during the week, and we do love to get your questions. You can record your question 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 seven. You can send your question to

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Or you can e-mail us at [email protected]. And those are places where if you can and you’re moved to do so you can help us financially. I promise that we’ll spend every dime for the glory of God. And if you can’t, we understand, Oh, by the way, you can give on your phone. Did you know that? I just found this out recently. You can text Key Life at 28950 and just follow the instructions. So if you can, do. If you can’t, we understand, say a prayer for this ministry. Alright, let’s turn to some of these questions. This is an e-mail. How do I have a personal experience with Jesus and really feel his presence in my life? You know, just a thousand things come to mind. When you ask a question like that. I think it’s an all or an overnight thing. It’s a walk with Christ that becomes more real and more profound. The more you do it, I’ve been doing this longer than most of you have been born. And I’d like to say that I’m a spiritual giant and I sense his presence all along, but I don’t. But sometimes I do, maybe more than I did when I was younger. So, it’s a long road that you walk, but it’s one you’re called to walk. And the second thing is of course, the means of grace. Believe it or not, when you go to worship, you hear and sense God’s presence there. I’ve always felt that, even before I was a Christian I’d sit in church and I would think something’s going on here that I didn’t understand. In communion Christ is present in those places. Luther was big on taking his hymnbook with him as well as his Bible for his private devotions. Music is a place, in the sacraments of the church. And, in studying the word, those kinds of places where, but let me tell you something that I’ve learned recently, and that is sometimes we miss God’s presence, because we label it something else. And so, do the things that I was just talking about. They’re really important. And they’re part of what it means to be a Christian, it’s a growing relationship with Christ, to learning to love him more and just walking with him, that’s a natural process, but don’t label something different than what it is. Sometimes, it’s good to say, Lord, I don’t hear from you much anymore. And I, you know, I really want to sense your presence. A lot of Christians talk about it. And I don’t experience it very much. Would you make me sensitive to the places where I can hear your voice. And you know where you might get it, when your baby giggles. You know where you might hear the presence of God, when your friend sees you’re going through a wrong time and he hugs you? My brother said to me, one time, he used to pick me up at the airport, cause I’d go by and see. Go by and see my mother. And my brother was a lawyer, the district attorney and a politician. And I was a preacher. And our father said, no matter what problem he got in, one of his sons could get him out. But I remember the time my brother picked me up and he told me a joke. And it, and he can’t tell jokes. He’s just not a funny person. It’s just awful. I said, Ron, what are you, you know you can’t tell jokes. He said, I know, but you look so tired and so down, I wanted to do something. And at that moment, I felt the presence of Christ. Sometimes in a friend who smiles and hugs you, when things are going bad. You’d be surprised how often the presence of Christ manifests itself in our lives, if we’re sensitive to where that happens, and so do me a favor. When you would like this to happen, say Lord, I listened to an old guy on the radio and he said that if I ask you to make me sensitive to your voice, that you would do that for me, would you? You might be surprised. at what happens. Well, I’m out of time. We do like to get your questions. And one other thing, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.