Sermon for Sunday, October 18, 2026, St Luke, Evangelist and Martyr
2 Timothy 4:9-17a
Church Growth According to the Apostle.
Today we celebrate St Luke, evangelist and martyr. We give him the title “evangelist” for obvious reasons, as an author of a Gospel book. But when it comes to “martyr” I have to be honest, it is difficult to track down exactly how and when this is supposed to have happened.
As for our Bible readings, they have all been set for this specific date. We heard the passage that we did from Jeremiah because it speaks of a God who wishes to come down to the poor and needy and help and heal them, which is a big theme of St Luke’s Gospel. We heard of the sending out of the 72, because there is a very good chance St Luke was one of those 72, as well as the fact that it includes our Lord’s command to heal those they came across. St Luke loves to include Christ’s healing power in his Gospel, and it might have something to do with the fact that he was himself a doctor.
Then we had the Epistle reading. It is probably the last thing St Paul ever wrote, as he is locked up for the final time awaiting his execution (we seem to have visited this letter a fair amount this year, no?). The apostle gives a list of names to Timothy, updating him on their where’s and what-for’s. Included in this list are two names we should make note of: Mark, and Luke. Church tradition holds that these are the men who wrote the Gospels of the same name. So do we have this passage set for this day simply because St Luke gets name-dropped? Well, yes – but I think there is also more gold to be dug out of it.
What this gives us is a picture of the early church. Or more specifically, it teaches us church growth according to the apostles. Now, we should all be concerned about church growth, and this passage will teach us why. Even more importantly, this era of the church was when it saw massive, explosive growth, and so we should take a lesson from these men and women, and apply it to the Redcliffe peninsula 2,000 years later, because the method still works.
Firstly, let’s see if we can figure out why church growth is so important. Why do we get a sense that our number should be greater than it is? It is because the nature of the church is such that it is all about people. Look at what this section of the letter is all about: it is an update on people’s situations, to another person. We get this all the time here in church: have you heard about so-and-so? How is such-and-such doing? A church is a group of people who love one another and are concerned about their well-being. But it goes even further than that.
The Church is the body of Christ. As Christians, we love Christ (it’s in the name!). And so if you love Christ, you must love his body. This is why people are so important in the church. It is because we are all incarnated spirits who are joined to Christ. We are living proof of Christ’s loving presence in our lives.
This was a big part of St Paul’s understanding. We read across his letters in a few places his favourite illustration of the church as a body, with many different parts that are all equally important. He loved Christ; he loved the body of Christ, the Church. And so this is, I think, the deeper reason as to why we as Christians always are looking for people to grow the church. Because people are so important. People to love, and people to be loved by, all wrapped up in the body of Christ, the God who loves us. Church growth according to the early church is all about people – we need to be looking out for one another.
The other big part of how the early church saw church growth is how it is all about the message. St Paul mentions it twice: watch out for this guy called Alexander, for he opposed our message. And when everyone deserted me, the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and all might hear it. St Paul is writing from prison, having been put there because of the message. He is waiting to have his head chopped off because of the message. St Luke is there with him, watching and listening to everything that is happening, and decides to follow in his footsteps, writing the Gospel and then Acts of the Apostles, and winning the martyrs crown himself, because of the message. What is this message that could be more important than freedom and life itself?
I think this might be where the modern church has fallen down. And I am preaching to myself here – I am guilty just as much as the rest of you. The message does not grip us the way it gripped our spiritual forebears. Thank God that we still have one of the two pillars of the early church, that is, the love of the people of the church. But pray God he would set a fire under us so that we can build up the other: the passion for the message.
Where is our fire for the Gospel? I hear words like “winsome” when it comes to preaching the message of Jesus Christ. But I look in the pages of Holy Scripture and read the accounts of the apostles and see nothing of the sort, but rather confident declaration. Men and women standing up and declaring the gospel – not sharing, but declaring.
We are heralds of the good news of Jesus Christ. We are the seventy-two sent out by the Lord Jesus himself. We have been given authority and power – and we have alongside it a great responsibility. I say this with tears, tears for my own weakness, my own cowardice, my own smouldering wick which should be a blazing fire for the gospel, in the hope it awakens a fire in your own spirits. Listen to what happened to the apostles of Jesus Christ, and wonder alongside with me what fire must have been blazing within them:
St John, who wrote the Gospel according to St John, the three letters, and the book of Revelation, died of old age surrounded by the people of his church. But he was the only one.
St James, brother of John, was beheaded by order of Herod Agrippa.
St Andrew was crucified on a X-shaped cross, taking three days to die, preaching all the while, because he converted so many of the local Greeks in Patras.
St Bartholomew was flayed alive and beheaded in Armenia for leading the local governor to faith in Christ.
St James the Less was thrown off the top of the Temple in Jerusalem, survived the fall and prayed for his attackers while they stoned him and eventually finished off by a laundryman with his clothes beater.
St Matthew brought the daughter of the Ethiopian king to saving faith in Christ and had his head chopped off as a result.
Ss Simon and Jude went to what is now Iran, where St Jude was bludgeoned to death, and St Simon was sawn in half.
St Philip was crucified upside-down in modern-day Turkey, apparently requesting the posture because he had heard St Peter had been martyred in the same way and thought it was a good idea.
St Matthias went to modern-day Georgia, and received an axe to the head for his efforts.
St Thomas made it to India, brought the family of the king to saving faith in Jesus, which angered the king, who had him run through with a spear.
And of course Ss Peter and Paul, both martyred in Rome, one crucified upside down, and the other beheaded.
Such was the end of those who first preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I say this to try and demonstrate to all of us what fire blazed in these men, a fire that meant that they would be willing to die this way. What is the church to us – what is the faith of the Lord Jesus to us? St Paul, as we heard today, was pleased for one thing: that even when all had deserted him, the Lord stood by him and strengthened him, so that he might declare the message. What is the message to us?
Church growth according to the apostles is not about a new program, or market research, or figuring out how to speak into our culture. It is about cultivating the inner fire – a love for Christ, a love for his body, the church, and a love for the message of his death and resurrection. On this feast day of St Luke, evangelist and martyr, let us pray that God would send his Holy Spirit anew in each of us, fanning our little flames, that we might be on fire for the Lord, loving and declaring like so many before us. Let us pray to God that he would bless our parish, that he would stand by us and strengthen us like he did St Paul, so that through us the message might be proclaimed to all. Let us pray to God that the message of Jesus Christ would burn so hot in each of us that we would know so strongly of his loving-kindness towards each of us that we would be willing to do anything for him. For he does love us – his love is never-failing, his care for us eternal. May we truly know this, as strongly as the apostles knew this, for then we, his church, will be able to do anything.