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The Sermon for Sunday, August 10th, 2025, the Eighth Sunday after Trinity
The Lessons: Psalm 33:10-21; Genesis 15:1-6; Luke 12:32-40
The Text: Luke 12:32-40
INTRODUCTION
Our Lord’s words that occur at the beginning of our Gospel Lesson today, are full of encouragement:
Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
(Luke 12:32, KJV)
He was speaking to his disciples, not to the crowds. In the preceding verse, the Lord commanded them to seek first the kingdom of God, and all the material blessings that they needed would be given to them by God. The words, “Fear not, little flock,” remind us of Psalm 23, and of John 10:1-16, particularly John 10:11 & 14, where Jesus states that He is the Good Shepherd. In ancient Israel, as we see from passages such as Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34, the images of shepherd and sheep were applied respectively to the rulers, or kings, of Israel and to the people. The Biblical idea of the shepherd, then, carries with it the associations of ruler and lord. In the edition of the Vulgate that Miles Coverdale used to translate the Psalms into English (as we have them in our 1928 Prayer Book), the Latin version of the Psalm begins with the words we have as the title of Psalm 23, “Dominus regit me,” which mean “The Lord rules over me.” Therefore, as the Church today is Christ’s “little flock,” we have to understand that this implies that we are following the Lord Jesus Christ in obedience to his commands.
Now the words “fear not” mean that we Christians must fear no-one and nothing, since it is God the Father’s delight, or good pleasure, to give us his kingdom. Earlier in this same chapter, the Lord issues a similar warning, pointing out that God is the only One whom we should fear:
And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
(Luke 12:4-5, KJV)
The kingdom of God we have been given by God, who has adopted us as his children, since we turned away from sin and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. The only one to fear is God, and that fear must lead us reverently to obey him all our lives. St. Paul assures the faithful that nothing can separate us from the love of God:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:35-39, KJV)
Since all these trials and dangers cannot separate us from God’s love, we should not be afraid of them, or of those who may inflict them on us. Instead of fear or doubt, God calls us to have faith in him, not only the faith that leads to forgiveness of sins and to salvation, but the faith in God that believes he will fulfill all his promises to us, and will take care of all our needs, and lead us at last into the fullness of his eternal kingdom.
After telling his disciples to have no fear, he tells them to sell their possessions and to give alms (Luke 12:33). These actions will reveal their faith in God to provide for their needs, even when they have given away their possessions to those in need. Now, how do we understand this? St. Francis of Assisi was a saint who took this literally, and gave away all he had. Others understand this to mean the generous giving away of things we do not need, or selling those things and giving the proceeds to the poor for their benefit.
A little girl who was homeless was once asked what she wanted to do when she grew up. “I want to own a grocery store,” she said. When asked why, she replied, “So I can give out food to all the hungry people.” Mother Teresa used to say, “In the poor we meet Jesus in his most distressing disguises.”[1]
The little girl had a goal in life that sprang from her compassion for those who are hungry because they hardly have the means to buy enough food.
The Lord Jesus took the Old Testament commands to care for the poor very seriously, and made generosity to the poor a duty of Christians too. In the following verses (Luke 12:33-34), he explains the spiritual and heavenly significance of giving to the poor. By doing so, we make purses, or money bags for ourselves that do not grow old, and never-failing treasure in heaven, which cannot be stolen by thieves, or consumed by moths, as valuable clothes can be. What does this mean for us? It does not mean that as we show generosity to others, suddenly we receive more material wealth for ourselves. Instead, God lays up blessings in heaven for us and gives them to us at the times of his choosing when we have the greatest need of them. These are not always material blessings. For example, poor Christians whom we have helped continue to give thanks for us and to pray for us, and God hears their prayers and blesses us in different ways through those prayers. Finally, if we have focused on generosity with the resources we have received from God, we are shown to be not as concerned with earthly matters as much as with the heavenly and eternal worth of our ministry to others and to Christians in this world.
The Lord’s spiritual counsel concerning fearlessness and faith in God is followed by his spiritual exhortation to be ready for His second coming, and to be watchful. In giving the counsel not to fear, but to have faith and to show that faith in generosity to the poor, the Lord has prepared his disciples for his counsel on vigilance. One cannot be vigilant if one is mired in a morass of worldly concerns and pursuits. Generosity lifts one’s spirit to a proper sense of priorities, of viewing life from the perspective of eternity. He tells them to be ready for His coming, as servants waiting in their master’s house are clothed, ready for service, having their lamps burning at all hours of night, waiting for their master to return from a wedding, Such a master will even serve those servants who are ready when he comes. The second parable about the householder that would not have allowed the house to be broken into if he had known what time the burglar was coming, is another warning to Christians to be ready at all times for the coming of the Lord.
CONCLUSION
Now there are different ways in which to understand the Lord’s coming. The obvious sense is the actual Second Coming of the Lord, for which all Christians must be ready. Then there is death that comes to us all, except to those who are alive when the Lord comes again (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). When we die, if we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and turned away from sin, we appear before the Lord. We have to ask ourselves whether we are ready to meet with the Lord at any time when this may happen. But there is a third sense in which we must be ready for the Lord. That is when we encounter a very grave crisis in our lives. Will we be ready to draw on the Lord’s grace and meet him in our time of greatest need? Ephesians 6, verses 10-20, tell us to find our power and strength in the Lord and in the power of his might:
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
(Ephesians 6:13, KJV)
The “evil day” may come at any time, and we must be fully armed with the whole armor of God that we may be able to withstand the attacks of Satan, and having withstood, to still be standing.
How, then, shall be ready and vigilant? We must let go of all fear, except the fear, or reverence, of God. We must have faith in God, as Abraham did, whose faith God counted as righteousness (Genesis 15:6), and we must share generously of what we have with those in need, as God leads us, and we must cultivate spiritual watchfulness through prayer, and reading and studying the Bible so as to obey the Lord and apply God’s teaching and commands to our lives.
[1] p. 112, Craig Brian Larson & Phyllis Ten Elshof (General Editors): 1001 Illustrations that Connect. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, Christianity Today International, 2008.