"Love Labors!" Luke 10:23-37

The Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity                           3-September-2023
Sermon Text: Luke 10:23-37
Sermon Theme: “Love Labors!”
I. Love Labors Through The Preachers He Sends (vs.23-24)
II. Love Labors Through The Law Justly Convicting Us! (Vs.25-28)
III. Love Labors Through His Compassion Rescuing Us! (Vs.29-35)
IV. Love Through His Mercy Calling Us To Follow Him!(vs.36-37)

I.N.R.I. “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!” “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” and your ears to hear what you hear! Sing with Asaph, the Psalmist, “You are the God who works wonders, You have made known Your might among the peoples!” Right before your eyes this morning you saw a child of Adam, conceived and born in sin, captive to Satan and death, a child of wrath doomed to damnation. You saw with your eyes. Heard with your ears. Your crucified, risen, ascended, and every present Jesus speak His Word. “Bailey, I baptize you!” the King proclaimed her His own. Breathing forth His Holy Spirit she was brought from spiritual death to life by God the Father through His only begotten Son.
    Right before your eyes and into your ears you saw the Kingdom of God come to Bailey by water and Christ’s Word. You saw God the Father’s work through His Son forgiving her all her sins. You saw Jesus rescuing her from death and the devil. You heard the Holy Spirit seal to her eternal salvation by grace through faith in Jesus. The covenant promise sealed to Abraham in Christ - has been promised, given, and sealed to her in holy baptism. A princess of the King her life is now bound to Christ’s and His Kingdom of Grace - the local Christian congregation.
      Right before your ears this morning Christ the King worked wonders. He spoke again your birthright in baptism. Breathing forth the Holy Spirit through His Word the Father claimed you His beloved child. Jesus worked peace for us troubled sinners. He spoke cross earned Easter verified words of forgiveness. God the Holy Spirit richly forgave you all your sins for Christ’s sake and God your Father remembers them no more - He sees you as His beloved child - clothed in Jesus perfect life. God’s Kingdom has come to you!
      Rejoice! You don’t make God’s Kingdom come by your prayers, works, or feelings. It comes by itself. It is His Work and Gift. Learn well this morning: “Love Labors!”I. Love Labors Through The Preachers He Sends (vs.23-24) II. Love Labors Through The Law Justly Convicting Us! (Vs.25-28) III. Love Labors Through His Compassion Rescuing Us! (Vs.29-35) IV. Love Through His Mercy Calling Us To Follow Him!(vs.36-37).
I. As lambs among wolves preaching peace, applying healing gifts, proclaiming ‘the Kingdom of God has come near to you.’ Lambs among wolves, with no visible means of support - surely meant disaster. Still we find Jesus sending out His disciples, men to preach, two by two, preparing His way. What happens? All heaven breaks loose. Demons are subject to them. Jesus sees Satan’s fall through their preaching His Word and administering His gifts. He calls them to rejoice that their names are written in heaven by the Father’s grace in His Son by the Holy Spirit.
    Listen! (Lk 10:23-24) How can lambs survive among wolves? Only if their Good Shepherd is with them always! Protecting, feeding, defending, quenching their thirst, and binding up their wounds. The 72 men were sent out, but Jesus was with them - He was at work through them. There eyes and ears are blessed - they see the Only Begotten Son of God - the eternal Word - in the Flesh -the God/Man who has come to rescue all lost and condemned sinners by His Work alone! His victory is given through His Word alone. His Word preached by the sinful men He calls and sends. His Word attached to water, bread, wine - gives what it promises forgiveness, rescue, eternal salvation. The Spirit of Truth is at work through Christ’s Word to fill us sinners with cross earned and empty tomb certified forgiveness, life, and salvation for Christ’s sake.
    You are blessed to hear the voice of your Good Shepherd through the preacher He sends. His word spoken to the 72 still applies, “Luk 10:16 He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me."
      Today, Bailey has been rescued as a lamb among a world of wolves. Wolves that breathe the Satanic lie that we can be our own gods. Wolves that desecrate the sanctity of the human body to follow feelings. Wolves that slaughter unborn babies claiming it a right. Wolves that say in their hearts that there is “no God” we are just biological accidents. Her Good Shepherd today has called her by name. Bring her into the rich green pastures of His Word every Sunday to be fed by His undershepherds. Baptism without continuing in God’s Word, is like birthing a child and never feeding it or changing its diaper. Be like faithful Joseph who taught God’s Word to his family at home and brought Jesus to the synagogue every Sabbath day from His infancy - so that as an adult it was His custom to be in God’s House hearing God’s Word. Be like faithful Lois and Eunice who from infancy taught Timothy God’s Word in their home and brought him into the local synagogue to hear, to sing, to pray, rejoicing in the Promised Christ. Love - Jesus - labors through His Word in House, the Church, and in the Homes of the baptized. “Come, Lord Jesus! Be our Guest!” Feed us and our children body and soul!
II. Love Labors by calling us to be honest before God’s Holy Ten Commandments. Listen! (Lk.10:25). An expert in God’s Word, equivalent to a Doctor of Theology puts the poor country Preacher from Nazareth to the test, just as Satan had done to our Lord after His baptism. He honors Jesus with the title “Teacher” but is certain that he knows more than this carpenter’s Son from Nazareth. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”...”What shall I do?” is a Law question - so Jesus directs the lawyer scholar back to the Law.(Lk 10:26) He asked this expert what he understands from God’s Holy Ten Commandments. The expert answers (Lk. 10:27) He has done well in his studies. He summarizes the great confession of the Faith from Moses in Deuteronomy 6. The Law calls us to love the Lord ‘our’ God with all that He created us to be, all the life He has given us, all the skills and abilities He has blessed us with, and all the intellect He bestows upon us. There is no part of our body, mind, or spirit of which our Creator doesn’t lay claim. Then gleaning God’s teaching which takes us outside of ourselves from Leviticus 19 - the lawyer understands that we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves.
      He has memorized his catechism well. Baptismal life knits us into the catechism for life. Teach Bailey, and your boys to know by heart the Holy Ten Commandments, The Apostles’ Creed, The Lord’s Prayer, the Promises Jesus gives them in Baptism, Absolution, and in The Sacrament of the Altar. Ground them in the Truth that sets and will keep them free in this age of lies. It is their baptismal birthright. The Lawyer knew his catechism, but that was all. (Lk. 10:28) He didn’t do it. He hadn’t fulfilled God’s Law - it condemned him as a poor miserable sinner. He hadn’t loved God with all that he was, or his neighbor as himself. If you are honest before the mirror of God’s Holy Ten Commandments you will confess the same is true about you. The Old Adam is drown in our baptism, but he is a good swimmer that resurfaces - daily we need to drown him again as we honestly admit we are sinners, confess them to God and those we hurt, and rise to new life by Love working through His Compassion!
III. The Lawyer doesn’t want to lose face before Jesus and His Church. (Lk. 10:29) He wanted clarification from this Teacher - was he really his brother’s keeper? Who exactly was the neighbor he had to love as himself?
      Love labors through His Compassion to breath His life into this experts mind and heart. (Lk.10:29-32) We know the parable of the Good Samaritan well. Many twist it to justify themselves boasting of what they have done by helping others. They are as blind as the Lawyer and still under the curse of the Law. A man travels down from Jerusalem on the road to Jericho. Thieves descend upon him, take his donkey, his money, his clothing, his health, they beat him and leave him for dead in the ditch. His life is valueless in their sight - only rotting stinking flesh - garbage for the vultures.
      A priest rides near, sees him, but rides on. He cannot touch a dead body and become ceremonial unclean. He has important work to do at his local synagogue, after all he had just completed his week of service praying and sacrificing in Temple - he rides by on the other side. A Levite, a worker who did the work of caring for the Temple, draws closer, stops to look, but then passes by - he didn’t want to get his hands dirty with the bloody pulp of a man who had no hope to live. Why get involved when the robbers still might be hiding in the nearby shadows?
The Law was never given to save us. Paul, the expert of God’s Law, teaches it confined us all under sin “that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”
      Behold Love laboring through His compassion! (Lk.10:33-35) A Samaritan, half-breed, hated by the pious Jews. Draws near. If the beaten man were healthy he would’ve spit at him. The Samaritan comes to the bloody pulp of a man. His heart goes out to him. He has compassion. He acts - applying first aid rescuing him on his own donkey - caring for him through the night sustaining his life. He pays for the man’s stay, some estimate up to two months, in the care of the inn keeper. He promises to return and pay for all the man’s expenses. Jesus alone is the Good Samaritan. He alone rescues us from death and the devil. He works forgiveness of sins pouring in the oil and wine of peace by His cross. He places us into His Church to be kept and cared for until He comes again in glory to fulfill our baptism in the resurrection of our bodies and the life of the world to come! Rejoice! His Compassion began the good work in Bailey this morning, and in you at the font - He will bring it to completion.
IV.   Love labors His mercy calls us to follow Him. (Lk.10:36-37) Who is the true Neighbor to us sinners? Jesus! Only Jesus! He is mercy. He has mercy upon you today and every day. He frees you to follow Him. Receive all from the Father’s love through Christ by His Spirit for now and eternity. His mercy flows through you to care for one another. In your home, your congregation, your community. Alleluia Christ is risen! Amen.