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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our text comes from the Gospel reading written by St. Luke, the evangelist whose day we are celebrating this day. You may be seated. So allow me to throw out some very fascinating facts about the evangelist known as St. Luke. First of all, Luke was not a Jew. He was a Gentile. He was a pagan by his own religious background. Secondly, Luke was not an apostle. He was merely a disciple, just like you and just like me. But because of Luke’s closeness with Paul, he was very well known by the other 12 apostles. Luke was a physician and a very gifted writer also. And very well educated because his grammar and his vocabulary in both the book of Acts and the book of Luke show forth such intelligence. But let me put this in perspective for you. If you were to look at the entire body of the New Testament, all of the words and sentences, add them all up. Luke wrote one third of the entire New Testament coming to content. One third as a Gentile and non-apostle. Secondly, when you think of the New Testament, besides the four Gospels, you think of the Apostle Paul, who taught Luke. But when you compare the entire body of the works of St. Paul in the New Testament to the entire body of the works of St. Luke in the New Testament, Luke actually has a little bit more content than Paul. Things we don’t always think about. Being one of the four evangelists, his symbol in one of the windows down the side of the pulpit side is a winged ox. A winged ox. It’s also upstairs in the choir loft in the lower right-hand corner. You can take a look at that on the way out. But what was so interesting about Luke is Luke’s words that the Holy Spirit inspired him to write That are a part of your faith. Deep, deep ingrained in your faith. Only in Luke do we know about the birth of Jesus in such detail. Every Christmas, since you were a little boy or a little girl, you have heard it proclaimed to you, or you yourselves were a part of a youth gaffe that proclaimed it to the congregation. Many parts of Luke are in Luke alone. None. That are part of our worship services. Mary’s praising God after it was revealed to her that she would give birth to the baby Jesus. She sings the Magnificat. Which is a part of our evening prayer service. Luke records it alone. Luke also records the prophet Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, who after the angel has revealed to him, sings a song in praise to God that we call the Benedictus. It’s sung in morning prayer services. Those of you who grew up with the old hymnal and we still sing it today… At the end of communion, you sing another song that Simeon sang, only recorded in loose gospel. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. The nunc dimittis. And then this morning, we sing it here. It was the song of the angels, proclaimed to the shepherds. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. We call it in the liturgy, glory in excelsis. We sang it this morning. That’s how much Luke and what God did through Luke, really, I should say, is a part of the church’s life, more so than just as a gospel writer, are what is used by God through Luke’s recording of it, so much of our liturgy. Well, that raises the question, if the text for Luke’s day is the gospel reading, I don’t think… Unless you heard something I didn’t hear, there’s nothing mentioned in the gospel reading about Luke. You heard it mentioned in the epistle reading when Paul says, Luke is with me. But there’s nothing in the gospel reading about Luke. That’s because the point of this gospel reading is about what Luke did. He is known as St. Luke the Evangelist. Not the apostle, the evangelist, the proclaimer of good news. Just as these 72 were sent out by our Lord Jesus Christ, just as Luke was sent out along with Paul to assist and proclaim, so you have been sent out and you’re never too old to be sent out. You’re still being used by God and you’re never too young. God is the one that does the sending. And in fact, it thrills God. It brings him joy to use his children to reach his other children. I mean, think about it. If God wanted to create faith in other ways, he could zap it into you. He could have a prophet raise his hands over you. Tons of ways. It would be a lot more effective, at least in my mind. But not our God. No. Our God loves to use his children. He loves to use his children. And he loves to use one who has come to faith by the same way. Every one of you Every single one of you have come to faith because God used somebody else to bring you into the faith. Most of you were brought up in the faith and so God used your parents in spite of your parents. It is not about the person who’s doing the communicating. It is about what the person is communicating. It’s very interesting. When Jesus proclaims this, he proclaims this as saying he’s sending us out As lambs among wolves. Why would he say such a thing that would cause us to look at ourself and our work that God is doing through us as lambs in the midst of wolves? Well, one reason is he wants us to grasp what lambs are in this whole process. Lambs see themselves as lambs. They know they’re not strong. They know that the power that they possess Have, from God’s word, is really where the power is and not in themselves. A lamb is totally dependent upon the shepherd to provide everything for him. And it is the shepherd who provides the message for the lamb to proclaim, which is powerful and effective. But if you’re looking at power, sheer power by the view of one’s eyes, a lamb looks powerless compared to the wolf. And yet you are not the wolf. You are the lamb. So you get it. It’s not about you. It’s about the message that God has given you to proclaim. You know, when we think about all of the things that God does, we think in terms of us having to have a strategy. We’ve got to figure out how to do this evangelism thing as if we’re making it into some kind of a difficult task, some kind of a magic formula. You’re thinking far too hard about yourself. Get over it. Yourself. If your parents, in spite of their sin, can bring you into the faith by sharing it with you, you can proclaim it to your children, to your family members and friends, in spite of you. And yet, what does Satan want you to focus upon? Yourself. How you do it. Why you do it. The motivation behind it. The method that you use. Can you imagine in this how long this statement would have been if Jesus would have laid out all these methods for the people to follow? What did he say? Go. That’s what he said. Go. He didn’t tell them which villages to visit. He didn’t tell them what houses to visit. He told them just to sow the seed. Go. Oh, yes, and speaking of sowing seed, one of the parables that’s only in the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the seed and the sower. The sower doesn’t have rules as to how he’s supposed to sow the seed, does he? The sower only is told, go sow the seed. Doesn’t make much sense sowing seed on hard ground, and yet the sower does. Doesn’t make much sense sowing seeds among thorns, yet the sower does. Doesn’t make much sense sowing seeds in the rocky places, yet the sower does. Quit trying to make it difficult and complicated and something that we have to figure out. It is God who does his work because his work is powerful. His word is powerful because he and his word are inseparable. If you proclaim his word, you actually are bringing Christ to that person. It was not your mother or your father that got you to faith. Throw it out of the window. It was the message that your mother and father proclaimed to you. And it was not your mother and father that kept you from the church. You who kept you from the church. Your sin and mine. Jesus, when he said he sends us as lambs out amongst the wolves, it wasn’t just for us to see that we have such a minuscule part in this. It was also for us to see that people will reject it as well. You can reject a lamb. It’s kind of hard to reject a wolf. It’s very easy to reject a lamb. Jesus makes it clear in this morning’s text. You will be rejected. Some folks won’t listen to you. Later on in that same text, he said, Jesus said to them, if they hear you, they hear me. If they reject you, they reject me and him who sent me. You notice he didn’t say if they hear you, it’s because they heard you and not me, Jesus could have said. Because when he said if they reject you, he didn’t say that’s it. He said they were really rejecting me. See, it’s not about you. If they reject the gospel, it’s not you. It’s not your presentation of it. It’s not your personality. It’s not you. He said the harvest is plentiful. That defines it for us, and that’s the promise. It’s known. It’s complete. When God sees an unbeliever become a believer, it’s not as if, surprise, I didn’t know that was going to happen. God knows it’s going to happen. But your and my role in that individual’s lives may not be to see the final flower bloom. It may just be one of many things along the way. And if that person does come to faith, it’s not because of you. It’s because of the message. It can get pretty heady when we see harvest before our very eyes. Someone comes to faith and we are a part of that process, the last process. Jesus is reminding us People still reject it. And if they reject it, it’s not because of you. And if they accept it, it’s not because of you. It’s all about him. It’s his harvest, not yours or mine. It’s his. Let him worry about it. All he said to you was, go, go. He didn’t say where. He didn’t say how often. He didn’t say when. He just said go. He’ll make the opportunities arise. He’ll give you the words to speak. He’ll make the words to speak. And he’ll work the miracle through those words, not through you. You’re just the vessel, the clay pot. But boy, does he love and is pleased to do such kingdom work through his children. I don’t know why, but that’s his will. You bring the word of God. You bring him. Remember the last part of that text. Tell the people that the kingdom of God has come near. Because when you proclaim it, God is there and present. When you bring that message, you’re bringing to that person Jesus and his peace. You know how we greet one another, peace be with you? It’s not like a good morning, although there’s a lot of good mornings that happen. The point of that is bringing the very thing that only a Christian can bring. Because a Christian is a Christian because they first and foremost have received the kingdom. And they have the peace. The peace of sins forgiven. Satan has been strucken and shattered from you. He has been driven away. You have that peace. You no longer fear death because you’ve been freed from that fear of death because of Christ’s resurrection. That’s peace. Only a Christian can give that peace. You’ve been given that peace. Finally, Luke has two very important parables among many that he has, but two very important ones that you can share. One. Because you’re the center of attention in these parables. The first one is the parable of the prodigal son. It’s only in Luke. And you’re the prodigal son. Even if you grew up in a church and in a household that went to church regularly, and even if you didn’t color outside the lines, you’re the prodigal son. And if you were the worst, you’re still the prodigal son. That’s peace. That’s a message that no one can deny that you brought the gospel to them. The other parable is just like it. It’s all about you. You’re the sinner of it. It’s the parable of the lost sheep. Remember, it’s only in Luke’s gospel. He leaves the 99 on the hillside to find you. You were the lost one, and he found you. And when he found you, he didn’t scoff at you, gripe at you, and grumble at you, and spank you. The text says very clearly that Luke records, he rejoiced over you. He rejoiced over you. He put you on his shoulder and rejoiced on his way back to tell everybody, look, that which was lost has been found. That’s why you have peace. That’s the message you have been given. The kingdom of God is yours. Bring the peace and go. Bring the peace and go. In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
