Luke: The Saviour Who Came to Seek and Save the Lost
Walk with Jesus as Luke carefully reveals the compassionate Saviour who brings God’s promised salvation, welcomes the overlooked, confronts the self-righteous and sets His face towards Jerusalem to seek and save the lost.
Welcome to Luke
Luke begins differently from the other Gospels.
Before telling us about angels, shepherds, miracles or disciples, Luke tells us why he is writing.
Others have already recorded accounts concerning Jesus. Luke has carefully investigated the events and arranged an orderly account so that his reader, Theophilus, may know the certainty of what he has been taught.
That opening matters.
Luke is not inviting us into a collection of inspirational stories detached from history.
He wants his reader to know what happened.
Then the story begins.
An elderly priest enters the temple.
An angel appears.
A barren woman conceives.
A young virgin is told that she will give birth to the promised King.
Two unborn children become part of God’s unfolding purposes.
Songs of praise erupt from people who recognise that God is acting within Israel’s long story.
Then, in Bethlehem, Jesus is born.
The announcement is not first made in a palace.
It comes to shepherds.
“Today in the city of David there has been born for you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”
Luke will spend the rest of his Gospel showing us this Saviour.
Jesus announces good news to the poor.
He touches those considered unclean.
He eats with tax collectors.
He welcomes women among His followers.
He responds to Gentiles.
He receives children.
He tells stories about lost sheep, lost coins and lost sons.
He confronts religious pride.
He warns the wealthy.
He teaches about prayer.
He calls sinners to repentance.
He shows mercy without pretending sin does not matter.
And He repeatedly turns human assumptions about importance upside down.
Those who appear spiritually secure may be far from God.
Those painfully aware of their need may go home justified.
Those seeking the highest places are told to choose the lowest.
The rich may be spiritually poor.
The socially despised may respond to God with remarkable faith.
The person asking, “Who is my neighbour?” discovers that neighbour-love crosses boundaries he might prefer to maintain.
Again and again, Luke brings us close to people who are overlooked, ashamed, powerless, grieving, sinful or lost.
But Luke’s central focus is never merely the marginalised person.
It is Jesus.
The Son of Man who sees them.
The Saviour who receives repentant sinners.
The Lord who carries God’s salvation towards Jerusalem.
Luke tells us that Jesus “determined to go to Jerusalem.”
From that point, the Gospel becomes a long journey towards the cross.
Jesus knows where He is going.
He predicts His rejection.
He teaches His disciples along the road.
And eventually He enters Jerusalem, shares a final meal, prays in anguish, is betrayed, arrested, mocked and crucified.
Yet even at the cross, Luke continues showing us the character of Jesus.
He prays for His executioners.
He responds to the criminal beside Him.
He entrusts Himself to His Father.
Then the tomb is found empty.
The risen Jesus walks beside confused disciples on the road to Emmaus and opens the Scriptures to them.
Finally, He commissions His followers to proclaim repentance for forgiveness of sins to all the nations.
Luke began with careful testimony.
He ends with witnesses.
Between those two points stands Jesus Christ:
the promised King, the compassionate Saviour, the Son of Man who came to seek and save the lost.
Before You Begin
Luke tells us that he has carefully investigated the events he records and drawn upon testimony handed down by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.
His Gospel is also the first part of a two-volume work.
Luke tells the story of Jesus.
Acts continues the story as the risen Jesus’ witnesses carry the gospel from Jerusalem outward towards the nations through the power of the Holy Spirit.
That connection helps us notice several important themes.
First, Luke is deeply rooted in Israel’s Scriptures.
His opening chapters are filled with Old Testament language, expectations and hopes.
Jesus does not arrive as though God is beginning an unrelated story.
His coming belongs within God’s covenant purposes for Israel.
Mary’s song, Zechariah’s prophecy and Simeon’s praise all look backwards to God’s promises while celebrating what He is now doing.
Second, pay attention to the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit fills people, directs people, rests upon Jesus and empowers His ministry.
This theme will continue powerfully into Acts.
Third, notice prayer.
Jesus prays at significant moments throughout the Gospel.
He withdraws to pray.
He prays before choosing the twelve.
He prays before Peter’s confession.
He teaches His disciples to pray.
He prays in Gethsemane.
He prays from the cross.
Fourth, Luke gives significant attention to wealth and poverty.
These passages require careful reading.
Luke does not teach that poverty itself earns salvation or that every possession is inherently sinful. But he gives serious warnings about greed, self-indulgence, indifference to suffering and trusting wealth.
Money reveals something about the heart.
So does generosity.
Fifth, Luke repeatedly shows God’s concern extending towards people easily overlooked within society.
Women feature prominently.
Tax collectors respond to Jesus.
Samaritans sometimes become surprising examples within His teaching.
Gentiles appear within the horizon of God’s salvation.
The poor hear good news.
The socially excluded are welcomed.
But this must not be flattened into the idea that being socially marginalised automatically makes someone spiritually right with God.
Luke’s deeper theme is grace.
All people need God’s mercy.
The self-righteous need it.
The visibly sinful need it.
The wealthy need it.
The poor need it.
The religious need it.
The outsider needs it.
Jesus has come to seek and save the lost.
And Luke will repeatedly challenge our instinct to decide which lost people appear more deserving of being found.
The Story of Luke
Luke moves from God’s fulfilment of His promises in the births of John and Jesus, through Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, into a long journey towards Jerusalem.
Along the road, Jesus teaches extensively about discipleship, prayer, money, repentance, mercy, humility, judgement and the kingdom of God.
He arrives in Jerusalem, is rejected and crucified, rises from the dead and commissions His followers as witnesses.
The Gospel ends with worship, joy and expectation.
The story will continue in Acts.
Movement One – God’s Promised Salvation Arrives
Luke 1-2
What Happens Here
Luke begins in the temple with Zechariah and Elizabeth.
They are righteous before God but have no children and are advanced in years.
While Zechariah serves in the temple, the angel Gabriel announces that Elizabeth will bear a son.
His name will be John.
He will prepare people for the Lord.
Six months later, Gabriel is sent to Nazareth to a virgin named Mary.
She is told that she will conceive by the Holy Spirit and give birth to Jesus.
He will be great.
He will be called the Son of the Most High.
God will give Him the throne of David.
His kingdom will have no end.
Mary responds:
“Behold, the Lord’s bond-servant; may it be done to me according to your word.”
She visits Elizabeth, and praise fills the scene.
Mary magnifies God for His mercy, His faithfulness to His promises and His overturning of human pride.
John is born.
Zechariah prophesies that God has visited His people and raised up salvation in the house of David.
Then the scene moves to Bethlehem.
Jesus is born and laid in a manger because there is no room available for them in the lodging place.
Angels announce His birth to shepherds:
“Today in the city of David there has been born for you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”
The shepherds go and see.
Later, Jesus is presented at the temple.
Simeon takes Him in his arms and praises God for allowing him to see God’s salvation – salvation prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of Israel.
Anna also recognises the significance of the child.
The section closes with twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple, speaking of the necessity of being in His Father’s house, while still returning with Mary and Joseph and living in submission to them.
What to Notice About God
God remembers His promises.
The opening chapters repeatedly celebrate His faithfulness to what He spoke long before.
Yet notice where His saving work appears.
Not among the obviously powerful.
An elderly couple.
A young woman from Nazareth.
Shepherds.
An old man waiting in the temple.
An elderly prophetess.
God’s purposes do not depend upon human prominence.
And the salvation arriving in Jesus is already reaching beyond Israel towards the nations.
A Thread to Follow
Listen for the language of salvation.
Luke introduces Jesus not merely as a teacher who will improve people’s understanding.
He is the Saviour.
Simeon sees in Him God’s salvation.
Zechariah speaks of salvation and forgiveness.
The angels announce a Saviour.
Luke is preparing us to ask:
What kind of salvation has Jesus come to bring?
The rest of the Gospel will answer.
Pause & Notice
- What promises, titles and expectations surround Jesus’ birth in Luke 1-2?
- What do the songs and prophecies reveal about God’s faithfulness, mercy and saving purposes?
- Where might you be tempted to measure God’s faithfulness by how quickly or visibly circumstances change rather than by what Scripture reveals about His character and purposes?
Movement Two – The Son Begins His Mission
Luke 3:1-4:13
What Happens Here
Luke carefully places John the Baptist’s ministry within history by naming political and religious rulers.
John appears preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
He refuses shallow responses.
People must not rely merely upon ancestry.
Repentance should bear fruit in actual behaviour.
Crowds ask what they should do.
John speaks about sharing with those in need.
Tax collectors are told not to collect more than authorised.
Soldiers are told not to extort and to be content with their wages.
When people wonder whether John might be the Christ, he points away from himself towards One greater.
Jesus is baptised.
As He prays, the Holy Spirit descends upon Him and the Father’s voice declares:
“You are My beloved Son, in You I am well pleased.”
Luke then gives Jesus’ genealogy, tracing His ancestry all the way back to Adam.
Jesus enters the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit.
For forty days He is tempted by the devil.
Each temptation challenges Him around hunger, power or proving God’s protection.
Jesus responds from Scripture.
He refuses to use His sonship independently of the Father’s will.
He will not worship Satan to gain the kingdoms of the world.
He will not manipulate God into proving His care.
The obedient Son remains faithful.
What to Notice About God
The Father’s declaration comes before Jesus’ public ministry has unfolded:
“You are My beloved Son.”
Jesus does not earn His sonship through public achievement.
Then the Son walks into temptation without needing to prove His identity on the devil’s terms.
This is significant.
The tempter repeatedly begins:
“If You are the Son of God…”
But Jesus does not need to perform for the tempter.
The Father’s word has already been spoken.
A Thread to Follow
Watch the relationship between identity and obedience.
Jesus’ identity as Son does not lead Him towards self-exaltation.
It is expressed through trust and obedience to His Father.
Luke will repeatedly show that genuine relationship with God is not proved by spiritual performance, status or spectacle.
It bears fruit in faithful obedience.
Pause & Notice
- What does John say genuine repentance should produce?
- How does Jesus respond when His identity, hunger and relationship with His Father are tested?
- How much of your own behaviour is driven by needing to prove something about yourself rather than living securely from what God has actually established as true?
Movement Three – Good News, Authority and Unexpected Grace
Luke 4:14-6:49
What Happens Here
Jesus returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.
In the synagogue at Nazareth, He reads from Isaiah concerning good news to the poor, freedom for captives, sight for the blind and the year of the Lord’s favour.
Then He says:
“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
At first the people respond positively.
But Jesus reminds them of Elijah and Elisha, whose ministries included God’s mercy reaching beyond expected boundaries to Gentiles.
The crowd becomes furious and attempts to kill Him.
Jesus continues His ministry.
He teaches with authority.
He commands unclean spirits.
He heals Simon’s mother-in-law.
He heals many others.
He withdraws to solitary places.
He calls Simon Peter after a miraculous catch of fish.
Peter falls before Him:
“Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
Jesus answers with a calling rather than rejection.
A man with leprosy is cleansed.
A paralysed man is forgiven and healed.
Levi the tax collector is called.
Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners.
When challenged, He explains:
“I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Conflict develops over Sabbath practices.
Jesus chooses twelve apostles after spending the night in prayer.
Then He teaches His disciples and the gathered crowd.
Luke’s account includes blessings and woes.
Jesus commands love for enemies.
Generosity.
Mercy.
Non-hypocritical judgement.
Good fruit flowing from a good heart.
And once again, Jesus ends with two foundations.
The person who hears His words and acts on them is like someone building upon rock.
What to Notice About God
Grace does not follow the boundaries human beings naturally draw.
Jesus welcomes sinners.
But notice carefully what He says.
He has come to call sinners to repentance.
Grace does not pretend sin is irrelevant.
Nor does holiness require keeping sinners at a distance.
Jesus holds together what we often separate:
truth and mercy.
A Thread to Follow
Luke will repeatedly expose the danger of believing that familiarity with God gives us ownership over His grace.
Nazareth knew Jesus.
Yet they resisted the suggestion that God’s mercy might reach people they considered outsiders.
Grace becomes uncomfortable when we realise we cannot control who receives it.
Pause & Notice
- What does Jesus’ ministry in these chapters reveal about the mission He has come to fulfil?
- How does Jesus hold together mercy towards sinners and the call to repentance?
- Is there anyone you find easier to judge than to recognise as someone who, like you, stands in need of God’s mercy?
Movement Four – Who Is This Jesus?
Luke 7:1-9:50
What Happens Here
Jesus heals a centurion’s servant and marvels at the Gentile officer’s faith.
At Nain, He encounters a widow whose only son has died.
Moved with compassion, Jesus raises him.
John the Baptist, now imprisoned, sends messengers asking whether Jesus is truly the expected One.
Jesus points to what is happening through His ministry in language reflecting Isaiah’s promises.
Then Jesus is invited to eat at the home of a Pharisee named Simon.
A woman known in the city as sinful enters and weeps at Jesus’ feet, wiping them with her hair and anointing them.
Simon silently judges both her and Jesus.
Jesus tells a story about two debtors and exposes the difference between Simon’s response and the woman’s love.
Luke then names women who travel with Jesus and the twelve, supporting the ministry from their resources.
Jesus teaches the parable of the sower.
He calms a storm.
He delivers a man tormented by demons.
He heals a woman suffering from bleeding.
He raises Jairus’s daughter.
The twelve are sent out.
Jesus feeds a crowd of thousands.
Then He asks His disciples:
“But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answers:
“The Christ of God.”
Jesus immediately begins teaching that the Son of Man must suffer, be rejected, killed and raised.
He calls His followers to deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow Him.
Soon afterwards Jesus is transfigured.
Moses and Elijah speak with Him about His departure, which He is about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
The Father’s voice declares:
“This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!”
Yet the disciples still struggle.
They cannot deliver a suffering child.
They fail to understand Jesus’ prediction of His betrayal.
And then they begin arguing about which of them is greatest.
What to Notice About God
Jesus sees people others overlook.
A grieving widow.
A Gentile officer.
A woman carrying a public reputation.
A tormented man.
A chronically ill woman.
A dying child.
Yet compassion is not the whole answer to Jesus’ identity.
The disciples must eventually recognise:
He is the Christ.
And once they do, Jesus immediately teaches them that the Messiah’s mission leads through suffering and death.
A Thread to Follow
Luke brings compassion and the cross together.
Jesus’ mercy is not sentimental kindness detached from humanity’s deepest problem.
The compassionate Saviour is walking towards Jerusalem.
He will ultimately deal with sin not merely by speaking sympathetically about broken people, but by giving Himself.
Pause & Notice
- What do Jesus’ actions in these chapters reveal about His authority and compassion?
- Why does Jesus begin teaching about His suffering immediately after Peter identifies Him as the Christ?
- Do you want Jesus primarily to fit your expectations of what He should do, or are you willing to let Him reveal Himself on His own terms?
Movement Five – Jesus Sets His Face Towards Jerusalem
Luke 9:51-13:21
What Happens Here
Luke 9:51 marks a major turning point:
“When the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem.”
Jesus now begins a long journey towards the city where He will suffer and die.
Along the road, He teaches what discipleship looks like.
When a Samaritan village refuses to receive Jesus, James and John want to call down fire.
Jesus rebukes them.
He sends out a larger group of disciples to announce the kingdom.
When they return rejoicing that demons submit to them, Jesus redirects their joy away from spiritual power towards what God has done for them.
Then an expert in the Law asks:
“Who is my neighbour?”
Jesus responds with the story we know as the Good Samaritan.
A wounded man lies beside the road.
A priest passes.
A Levite passes.
A Samaritan stops.
He shows mercy.
Jesus does not leave neighbour-love as an abstract theological concept:
“Go and do the same.”
Luke then takes us into Martha’s home, where Mary sits listening at Jesus’ feet while Martha becomes distracted with serving.
Jesus teaches His disciples to pray.
He speaks about persistence, trust in the Father’s goodness and the coming of God’s kingdom.
He confronts religious hypocrisy.
He warns against greed with the parable of a rich man who builds larger barns while remaining unprepared to meet God.
He teaches His disciples not to make possessions and anxiety their master.
He calls for readiness.
He warns that His coming can create division where allegiance to Him is rejected.
He addresses tragedies without allowing people to conclude that the victims were uniquely sinful.
Instead, He turns the question towards everyone:
“Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
What to Notice About God
Jesus refuses simplistic explanations for suffering.
When people tell Him about Galileans killed by Pilate and when He mentions those killed by a collapsing tower, He explicitly rejects the assumption that these victims were worse sinners than others.
That safeguard matters.
Not every tragedy is evidence of a particular divine punishment.
Jesus redirects attention from speculation about someone else’s suffering towards the universal need for repentance.
A Thread to Follow
The journey towards Jerusalem becomes a school of discipleship.
Jesus is travelling towards self-giving love while teaching His followers to abandon self-centred ways of living.
Neighbour-love.
Prayer.
Generosity.
Freedom from greed.
Readiness.
Repentance.
These are not disconnected lessons.
They describe a life increasingly reordered around God and His kingdom.
Pause & Notice
- What does Jesus teach His followers about mercy, prayer, possessions and repentance along the road?
- How does Jesus correct simplistic assumptions about suffering and divine punishment?
- What might your use of time, money, attention and compassion reveal about what currently has the strongest claim upon your heart?
Movement Six – The Lost Are Being Found
Luke 13:22-17:10
What Happens Here
Jesus continues towards Jerusalem.
Someone asks whether only a few will be saved.
Jesus refuses to turn the question into detached speculation and instead urges His hearers to respond.
He laments over Jerusalem.
He heals on the Sabbath.
He teaches about humility at a meal and tells His host to include those unable to repay him.
He speaks about the cost of discipleship.
Then Luke 15 opens with a complaint:
“This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
Jesus responds with three stories.
A shepherd loses one sheep and searches until he finds it.
A woman loses one coin and searches carefully until she finds it.
A father has two sons.
The younger demands his inheritance, leaves home and wastes everything.
When he finally returns, the father sees him from a distance, runs to him, embraces him and celebrates.
But the older son remains outside, angry at the father’s generosity.
The story exposes more than obvious rebellion.
One son was lost in a distant country.
The other can stand near the father’s house while remaining alienated from his heart.
Jesus then teaches about wealth, stewardship and faithfulness.
The story of the rich man and Lazarus gives a severe warning about wealth enjoyed without regard for a suffering neighbour.
Jesus teaches about forgiveness, faith and humble service.
What to Notice About God
Luke 15 reveals something beautiful about God’s response to repentance.
He is not reluctant to receive repentant sinners.
There is joy when the lost are found.
But the chapter also exposes self-righteousness.
The older brother’s outward proximity to the father has not produced joy over what the father loves.
It is possible to avoid obvious rebellion while still misunderstanding grace.
A Thread to Follow
Luke repeatedly places the lost and the self-righteous beside one another.
One person knows he is far away.
Another assumes she is already near.
One openly needs mercy.
Another believes mercy should be rationed according to deserving.
Jesus’ stories challenge both rebellion and pride.
Grace humiliates self-righteousness because grace means nobody stands before God as the person who needed less mercy than everyone else.
Pause & Notice
- What causes joy in the stories of Luke 15?
- What does the older brother reveal about the possibility of outward obedience without sharing the father’s heart?
- Is there anyone whose receiving grace would expose resentment, comparison or a sense of spiritual superiority within you?
Movement Seven – The Kingdom, Prayer and the Son of Man
Luke 17:11-19:27
What Happens Here
As Jesus continues towards Jerusalem, ten men with leprosy cry out for mercy.
All ten are cleansed.
Only one returns to give thanks.
He is a Samaritan.
Jesus teaches about the kingdom of God and the future coming of the Son of Man.
He tells a parable encouraging persistent prayer.
Then He tells another about two men praying at the temple.
The Pharisee lists his religious achievements and compares himself favourably with others.
The tax collector stands at a distance and prays:
“God, be merciful to me, the sinner!”
Jesus says it is the tax collector who goes home justified.
Children are brought to Jesus.
A wealthy ruler asks about eternal life but cannot release his attachment to riches.
Jesus again predicts His death and resurrection.
A blind man near Jericho cries out:
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus restores his sight.
Then Jesus enters Jericho and encounters Zacchaeus, a wealthy chief tax collector.
Jesus announces that He will stay at his house.
People complain.
But Zacchaeus responds with repentance expressed in concrete changes concerning money and restitution.
Jesus declares:
“Today salvation has come to this house.”
Then He explains His mission:
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
What to Notice About God
Luke does not separate salvation from transformed response.
Zacchaeus does not purchase salvation by giving money away.
Jesus has already taken the initiative towards him.
But when grace reaches Zacchaeus, something changes.
His relationship with wealth and with people he has wronged cannot simply remain untouched.
Grace is free.
Grace is also transformative.
A Thread to Follow
Compare the Pharisee and Zacchaeus.
One possesses religious respectability and uses it to elevate himself above others.
The other carries a despised reputation and responds to Jesus with concrete repentance.
Luke repeatedly warns us not to confuse outward respectability with a heart that is right before God.
Pause & Notice
- What different responses to Jesus and His mercy appear throughout these chapters?
- What do the tax collector’s prayer and Zacchaeus’s response teach about humility, repentance and grace?
- If grace is genuinely reaching your heart, where might it need to become visible in the way you handle money, relationships, restitution, forgiveness or the treatment of others?
Movement Eight – The King Enters Jerusalem
Luke 19:28-21:38
What Happens Here
Jesus approaches Jerusalem.
He enters riding on a colt while His disciples praise God and proclaim:
“Blessed is the King, the One who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Yet Jesus does not enter triumphantly without grief.
As He approaches the city, He weeps over it.
He enters the temple and drives out those conducting commerce there.
Religious leaders challenge His authority.
Jesus tells the parable of the vineyard tenants.
Questions are brought concerning taxes and resurrection.
Jesus warns against scribes who love public honour while exploiting widows.
Then He notices a poor widow placing two small coins into the treasury.
Luke 21 turns towards the coming destruction of Jerusalem, persecution and future events associated with the Son of Man.
As in the parallel passages in Matthew and Mark, Christians have understood some details differently.
But Jesus’ repeated emphasis remains clear.
Do not be deceived.
Do not follow false messianic claims.
Do not assume upheaval means the end has immediately arrived.
Expect opposition.
Remain faithful.
Stay alert.
Pray.
What to Notice About God
Jesus weeps over the city that will reject Him.
Judgement and grief stand together.
He does not speak about Jerusalem’s coming devastation with detached satisfaction.
He laments.
This guards us from imagining that biblical judgement gives God’s people permission to become callous towards those who resist Him.
A Thread to Follow
Luke has shown Jesus resolutely travelling towards Jerusalem since chapter 9.
Now He has arrived.
But the city will not crown Him in the way His followers might expect.
The King is moving towards rejection.
And still He goes willingly.
Pause & Notice
- What different responses meet Jesus when He enters Jerusalem?
- What do His tears over Jerusalem reveal alongside His warnings of judgement?
- When you believe someone is wrong, does your response increasingly resemble Jesus’ combination of truth, grief and love, or can being right become more important to you than loving the person?
Movement Nine – The Saviour Gives Himself
Luke 22-23
What Happens Here
The Passover approaches.
Judas agrees to betray Jesus.
Jesus shares the meal with His disciples and tells them that the bread is His body given for them and the cup is the new covenant in His blood.
Remarkably, the disciples begin arguing about which of them is greatest.
Jesus again overturns their understanding of leadership:
“I am among you as the one who serves.”
He warns Peter that Satan has demanded to sift him like wheat, but Jesus has prayed for him.
Peter confidently promises faithfulness.
Jesus tells him that he will deny Him three times.
On the Mount of Olives, Jesus prays in anguish:
“Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.”
He is arrested.
Peter denies Him.
Jesus is mocked and brought before the council, Pilate and Herod.
Though Pilate repeatedly states that he finds no basis for the charges deserving death, Jesus is handed over for crucifixion.
On the way to the cross, Jesus speaks to women mourning for Him.
At the place called the Skull, He is crucified between criminals.
Jesus prays for His executioners.
One criminal mocks Him.
The other acknowledges his own guilt and asks Jesus to remember him.
Jesus responds:
“Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
Darkness covers the land.
The temple curtain is torn.
Jesus cries:
“Father, into Your hands I entrust My spirit.”
And dies.
A centurion responds to what he has witnessed by glorifying God and recognising Jesus’ righteousness.
Joseph of Arimathea places Jesus’ body in a tomb.
The women observe where He is laid and prepare spices.
Then they rest on the Sabbath.
What to Notice About God
Everything Luke has shown us about Jesus converges here.
The One who welcomed sinners is crucified between criminals.
The One who taught enemy-love prays for His executioners.
The One who taught His disciples to trust the Father entrusts Himself to His Father in death.
The One who said He came to seek and save the lost extends hope to a dying criminal who can offer Him nothing.
Jesus does not merely teach the way.
He walks it.
A Thread to Follow
Luke has repeatedly shown human beings reaching for status.
At the final meal, even with the cross immediately ahead, the disciples are still arguing about greatness.
Jesus answers:
“I am among you as the one who serves.”
Then He gives Himself.
The cross exposes how radically different God’s kingdom is from human systems of self-exaltation.
Pause & Notice
- How do Jesus’ actions during His arrest and crucifixion reflect what He has taught throughout Luke?
- What does Luke emphasise about Jesus’ innocence, mercy and trust in His Father?
- When you see Jesus serving, forgiving and entrusting Himself to the Father even under suffering, what does that expose about the way you respond when you feel threatened, wronged or overlooked?
Movement Ten – The Scriptures Open and the Saviour Rises
Luke 24
What Happens Here
At dawn on the first day of the week, the women go to the tomb carrying the spices they prepared.
The stone has been rolled away.
The body of Jesus is gone.
Two men in dazzling clothing ask:
“Why are you seeking the living One among the dead?”
Then:
“He is not here, but He has risen.”
The women tell the apostles.
Their words initially seem like nonsense to them.
Later that day, two disciples walk towards Emmaus.
Jesus joins them, but they do not recognise Him.
They are disappointed and confused because they had hoped Jesus was the One who would redeem Israel.
Jesus begins with Moses and all the Prophets and explains the things concerning Himself throughout the Scriptures.
At the table, their eyes are opened and they recognise Him.
They say:
“Were our hearts not burning within us when He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?”
Jesus later appears to the gathered disciples.
He shows them that He is bodily risen.
Then He opens their minds to understand the Scriptures.
He explains that the Christ was to suffer and rise from the dead and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
They are witnesses.
But they are to wait until they are clothed with power from on high.
Jesus leads them towards Bethany, blesses them and is taken up.
The Gospel ends with the disciples worshipping Him and returning to Jerusalem with great joy.
What to Notice About God
The resurrection does not erase the cross.
Jesus helps His disciples understand the cross.
Their disappointment came partly because they had misunderstood what God’s redemption would look like.
The risen Jesus therefore does something profoundly important.
He opens Scripture.
He does not merely give them a powerful experience.
He teaches them to understand what God had been doing through the story they thought had gone wrong.
A Thread to Follow
Luke begins by giving Theophilus an orderly account so that he may know the certainty of what he has been taught.
It ends with witnesses who have encountered the risen Jesus and are about to carry the message outward.
The Gospel is not meant to terminate with private understanding.
Truth received becomes testimony carried into the world.
Pause & Notice
- How does Jesus use Scripture to help the Emmaus disciples understand His suffering and resurrection?
- What message does the risen Jesus commission His followers to proclaim?
- When circumstances contradict what you expected God to do, are you willing to return to Scripture and allow God’s revealed purposes to correct your interpretation of what faithfulness should look like?
See Luke as a Whole
Luke begins with waiting.
Israel has been waiting.
Zechariah and Elizabeth have waited.
Simeon has waited.
Anna has waited.
Then God acts.
John prepares the way.
Jesus is born.
The angels announce a Saviour.
Simeon sees God’s salvation.
And Jesus grows.
Then the Saviour steps into public ministry.
He announces good news.
He confronts evil.
He heals.
He forgives.
He teaches.
He welcomes.
He warns.
He calls sinners to repentance.
He confronts those who believe their religious status makes them spiritually secure.
Then He turns towards Jerusalem.
From Luke 9 onwards, the reader knows where Jesus is going.
Every meal.
Every parable.
Every encounter.
Every lesson about discipleship.
Every warning about wealth.
Every teaching about prayer.
Every confrontation with pride.
All unfold while Jesus is travelling towards the place where He will give Himself.
And along the road, Luke keeps asking us to notice who responds to Jesus.
A Samaritan.
A tax collector.
A sinful woman.
A blind beggar.
A widow.
Children.
A criminal dying beside Him.
Again and again, those who know they need mercy respond differently from those convinced they already possess spiritual standing.
Then Jesus dies.
And rises.
The disciples’ confusion is not answered by pretending the cross never happened.
Jesus opens the Scriptures and shows them how His suffering and resurrection belong within God’s saving purposes.
Then He sends them outward.
Repentance for forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations.
The salvation announced to shepherds outside Bethlehem will not remain in Bethlehem.
Or Galilee.
Or Jerusalem.
The story is moving towards the world.
Seven Great Threads to Carry With You
1. Jesus Is the Saviour
Luke announces this at Jesus’ birth and develops it throughout the Gospel.
Jesus brings God’s promised salvation.
But Luke does not reduce salvation to relief from difficult earthly circumstances.
Jesus forgives sins.
Calls sinners to repentance.
Seeks the lost.
Gives Himself.
Dies.
Rises.
And commissions the proclamation of repentance for forgiveness of sins.
The salvation Luke celebrates reaches humanity’s deepest problem.
2. God’s Grace Reaches the Unexpected
Luke repeatedly places unexpected people near the centre of the story.
Women.
Samaritans.
Gentiles.
Tax collectors.
The poor.
The socially despised.
A dying criminal.
But Luke’s message is not that outsiders are automatically righteous while insiders are automatically corrupt.
It is that God’s mercy cannot be controlled by human systems of status and deserving.
Everyone must receive grace as grace.
3. Repentance Bears Fruit
John begins by calling for fruit consistent with repentance.
Jesus calls sinners to repentance.
Zacchaeus demonstrates repentance through changed behaviour concerning wealth and restitution.
Luke never presents repentance as earning grace.
Instead, changed living becomes evidence that grace has reached the heart.
4. Prayer Marks the Life of Jesus
Jesus repeatedly prays.
Before significant decisions.
In solitude.
At His baptism.
Before important revelations.
In Gethsemane.
From the cross.
And He teaches His disciples to pray.
Luke presents prayer not as spiritual decoration, but as an expression of dependence upon God.
5. Wealth Can Reveal Where the Heart Trusts
Luke speaks about money with uncomfortable frequency.
The rich fool.
The rich ruler.
The rich man and Lazarus.
Zacchaeus.
The poor widow.
Jesus does not teach that possessions themselves automatically condemn someone.
But He repeatedly exposes greed, self-sufficiency, indifference and misplaced security.
Money has a remarkable ability to reveal what we trust.
6. God’s Kingdom Reverses Human Measures of Importance
The proud are brought low.
The humble are lifted.
The first may become last.
Children are welcomed.
Servants become examples of greatness.
The Pharisee who congratulates himself is not the one Jesus declares justified.
Luke continually challenges our instinct to measure people by status, wealth, reputation or visibility.
7. Jesus Came to Seek and Save the Lost
Zacchaeus’s story gives Luke one of its clearest summaries:
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
That sentence gathers up so much of the Gospel.
The shepherd searches.
The woman searches.
The father welcomes.
Jesus receives sinners.
And finally, the Saviour gives Himself.
Grace moves towards the lost.
Where Luke Leads
Luke ends where Acts begins.
Jesus has risen.
The Scriptures have been opened.
The disciples have been commissioned.
But they are told to wait for power from on high.
Acts will continue Luke’s story.
The Holy Spirit will come upon the disciples.
The gospel will be proclaimed in Jerusalem.
Then Judea.
Samaria.
And outward towards the nations.
That movement was already present within Luke.
Simeon called Jesus:
“A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”
Jesus reminded Nazareth of God’s mercy towards Gentiles.
A Roman centurion demonstrated remarkable faith.
A Samaritan became the neighbour in Jesus’ famous parable.
Another Samaritan returned to give thanks after being healed.
Then the risen Jesus declared that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed to all nations.
Luke therefore contributes powerfully to the whole biblical story.
The salvation promised through Israel’s Scriptures has arrived in Israel’s Messiah.
And through Him, God’s saving message moves outward towards the nations.
Acts will show that movement beginning.
The letters will unfold the implications of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Revelation will eventually show people from every nation worshipping before God.
The child announced in Bethlehem truly is:
“a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”
Before You Leave Luke
Luke leaves us with a Saviour who is extraordinarily compassionate.
But Luke’s compassion is never shallow sentimentality.
Jesus loves people enough to welcome them.
And enough to tell them the truth.
He welcomes sinners and calls them to repentance.
He receives the rejected and confronts the proud.
He feeds hungry people and warns those whose lives revolve around possessions.
He speaks tenderly to the broken and severely to those using religion to elevate themselves.
He tells people not to worry and also tells them to remain ready.
He speaks about mercy and judgement.
Grace and obedience.
Forgiveness and repentance.
Luke refuses to make Jesus smaller by choosing only the parts of Him we find immediately comforting.
That invites some honest examination.
Perhaps you naturally identify with the lost sheep.
Luke wants you to see the Shepherd who seeks.
Perhaps you identify with the younger son.
Luke wants you to see the Father receiving the repentant.
But perhaps sometimes you are the older brother.
Near the Father’s house.
Doing the expected things.
Yet quietly resentful when grace is extended to somebody you believe deserves less.
Perhaps sometimes you are Martha.
Serving something genuinely worthwhile but inwardly distracted, anxious and resentful.
Perhaps sometimes you are the Pharisee in the temple.
Not openly rejecting God, but using your perceived goodness to measure yourself against somebody else.
Perhaps sometimes you are the rich fool.
Not because you own barns, but because your sense of safety quietly rests upon having enough stored away to feel that life is under control.
Perhaps sometimes you are the disciples arguing about greatness while Jesus is talking about serving.
Luke does not show us these people so that we can assign their roles to everyone around us.
He allows them to examine us.
And then there is Jesus.
Steadily walking towards Jerusalem.
He does not need to prove Himself.
He does not grasp for human status.
He is not controlled by people’s approval.
He is not frightened away from sinners by reputation.
He is not impressed by religious performance.
He is not seduced by wealth.
He is not manipulated by crowds.
He is not diverted from His Father’s purpose.
He serves.
He prays.
He loves.
He tells the truth.
He shows mercy.
He obeys.
And He gives Himself.
This is where transformation begins to move beyond simply knowing what Luke teaches.
What happens when the truth about this Jesus reaches the heart?
Perhaps you become freer to admit when you need mercy because you no longer have to prove that you are better than somebody else.
Perhaps you become freer to repent because repentance no longer feels like the destruction of your identity.
Perhaps you become freer to forgive because you remember how much grace you yourself have received.
Perhaps you become freer to notice people who cannot repay you.
Freer to give.
Freer to serve.
Freer to stop comparing.
Freer to pray rather than control.
Freer to tell the truth about your motives.
Freer to release the illusion that possessions can guarantee security.
Freer to love people you once categorised.
Freer to come home when you have wandered.
And freer to celebrate when somebody else comes home too.
Luke does not invite you merely to become a nicer person.
It invites you to see the Saviour.
Because when you see grace clearly, pride begins to lose its logic.
When you see mercy clearly, self-righteousness becomes harder to defend.
When you see Jesus walking towards Jerusalem for sinners, the question of who deserves grace begins to sound very different.
And when you see the risen Jesus opening Scripture and sending His witnesses into the world, you realise that the Gospel was never meant to remain merely something you know.
It becomes truth from which you increasingly live.
Pause Before You Continue
- Looking across Luke as a whole, what does the Gospel reveal about the salvation Jesus came to bring?
- What do Jesus’ interactions with sinners, religious leaders, the wealthy, the poor, women, Samaritans and Gentiles reveal about God’s grace and the human tendency to measure worth differently?
- Which character or story in Luke most exposes something about your own heart – the older brother, Martha, the rich fool, the Pharisee praying in the temple, Zacchaeus, the disciples seeking greatness or someone else?
- Where might you currently be looking for security in money, control, approval, religious performance or comparison rather than allowing your life to be grounded more deeply in God?
- If you genuinely lived as someone who knows how much mercy you have received, how might that change the way you respond to people who disappoint, offend, inconvenience or appear undeserving to you?
Now Open His Word
Now return to Luke.
Begin with Luke’s opening paragraph.
Notice what he says about his purpose.
He has investigated.
He has considered testimony.
He is writing an orderly account.
He wants Theophilus to know the certainty of what he has been taught.
Then enter the opening chapters slowly.
Listen to the songs.
Mary.
Zechariah.
The angels.
Simeon.
Notice how saturated their words are with God’s earlier promises.
Do not detach Christmas from the biblical story.
The child in Bethlehem is the fulfilment of a story God has been unfolding through Israel.
When the angels say:
“Today… there has been born for you a Saviour,”
stop.
Ask what Luke will mean by Saviour.
Do not answer too quickly.
Let the Gospel itself fill that word with meaning.
When you reach Jesus’ baptism, listen to the Father’s voice:
“You are My beloved Son.”
Then carry those words into the wilderness.
Listen when the devil says:
“If You are the Son of God…”
Notice that Jesus does not need to turn stones into bread to prove what the Father has already declared.
He does not need spectacle.
He does not need Satan’s shortcut to authority.
He trusts and obeys.
Then enter Nazareth with Jesus in Luke 4.
Read Isaiah’s words.
Good news.
Freedom.
Sight.
Favour.
Then notice how quickly admiration becomes hostility when Jesus challenges the crowd’s assumptions about the reach of God’s grace.
Ask:
Do I rejoice in grace only when it reaches people I expect God to bless?
Continue through Jesus’ healings and encounters.
When Peter falls before Jesus and says:
“I am a sinful man,”
notice Jesus’ response.
When Levi is called, notice who comes to dinner.
When religious people complain, listen carefully:
“I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Hold both words together.
Sinners.
Repentance.
Do not soften either.
Then read Jesus’ teaching in Luke 6.
When He speaks about enemies, do not begin with the person who most needs to hear it.
Begin with your own heart.
When He speaks about judgement, inspect your own eye first.
When He speaks about fruit, ask what your words and reactions reveal about what is being stored within you.
When He speaks about foundations, notice again that hearing is not enough.
The solid foundation belongs to the one who comes to Jesus, hears His words and acts upon them.
As you enter chapters 7-9, watch Jesus notice people.
The centurion.
The widow.
The sinful woman.
The women supporting His ministry.
The tormented man.
The bleeding woman.
Jairus.
His daughter.
The hungry crowd.
Do not rush past them.
But do not make them the centre either.
Keep asking:
What is Luke revealing about Jesus through the way He responds to them?
Then arrive at Peter’s confession.
“The Christ of God.”
And immediately listen to Jesus explain the cross.
Do not create a Messiah from your expectations.
Let Jesus define His own mission.
Then Luke 9:51.
Mark it.
Jesus sets His face towards Jerusalem.
From this point onwards, remember where He is going.
As He teaches about neighbour-love, remember Jerusalem.
As He teaches about prayer, remember Jerusalem.
As He warns about greed, remember Jerusalem.
As He tells stories about lost things being found, remember Jerusalem.
The One telling these stories is travelling towards the place where He will give Himself for sinners.
When you reach the Good Samaritan, resist turning the Samaritan into merely a vague symbol for Jesus unless the text itself warrants that move.
First hear the story in its context.
A man asked:
“Who is my neighbour?”
Jesus turns the issue around and calls him to become the kind of person who shows mercy.
Then sit with Mary and Martha.
Do not condemn service.
Jesus Himself serves.
Notice instead Martha’s distraction and anxiety and Mary’s attention to Jesus.
Ask whether activity for God can sometimes crowd out attentiveness to God.
When Jesus teaches prayer, pray.
Do not merely analyse prayer.
When He warns about greed, resist the instinct to think immediately of somebody richer than you.
Ask what your own relationship with possessions reveals.
When He addresses tragedy in Luke 13, notice what He refuses to say.
He does not agree that the people who suffered were worse sinners.
Do not use suffering as evidence that you know God’s secret judgement concerning another person’s circumstances.
Listen instead to Jesus’ call for repentance.
Then reach Luke 15.
Take your time.
Do not hurry through these stories because they are familiar.
Notice the repeated movement:
Lost.
Sought.
Found.
Joy.
Then enter the final story.
Watch the younger son.
Watch the father.
Then watch the older brother.
Do not leave him outside the story.
Ask why Jesus leaves him standing there.
And remember who was listening when Jesus told the parable.
Tax collectors and sinners were drawing near.
Pharisees and scribes were complaining:
“This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
The older brother matters.
Let him examine you.
Then continue towards Zacchaeus.
Watch Jesus take the initiative.
Watch Zacchaeus respond.
Notice that grace produces visible change.
Then hear Jesus explain Himself:
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Keep that sentence.
Carry it into Jerusalem.
When Jesus sees the city and weeps, stop.
The One who speaks judgement also grieves.
When He enters the temple, notice His authority.
When He notices the widow, notice what Jesus notices.
When He speaks about coming events, do not become so fascinated by timelines that you miss His commands to remain faithful and alert.
Then enter the upper room.
Listen when the disciples begin arguing about greatness.
They have been with Jesus for years.
The cross is hours away.
And they are still comparing.
Then hear Jesus:
“I am among you as the one who serves.”
Take that personally, not by changing what the verse means, but by allowing what it means to examine how you define greatness.
Then walk into Gethsemane.
Hear Jesus pray.
Trust does not require pretending anguish is not anguish.
Jesus is honest before His Father.
Yet He entrusts Himself to His Father’s will.
Then watch Peter.
He was confident.
Now he fails.
Luke tells us that Jesus turns and looks at him.
Peter remembers.
And weeps bitterly.
Do not end Peter’s story there.
Luke will continue into Acts.
Failure will not have the final word.
Then stand at the cross.
Listen to Jesus.
Watch how He treats people while suffering.
Listen to the criminal beside Him.
Notice that this man has no lifetime left in which to repair his reputation or build a record of religious achievement.
He can only appeal to Jesus.
Then hear the answer:
“Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
Grace.
Finally, go to the empty tomb.
Hear:
“He is not here, but He has risen.”
Then walk towards Emmaus.
Listen to the disappointed disciples explain what they had hoped would happen.
Notice that their disappointment is connected partly to an incomplete understanding of God’s purposes.
Then watch what Jesus does.
He opens Scripture.
That matters enormously.
When your expectations and God’s revealed purposes collide, the answer is not to force Scripture to support your expectation.
Return to Scripture.
Let God explain God.
Let Jesus show you how the biblical story reaches its fulfilment in Him.
Then listen to the risen Jesus commission His followers.
Repentance for forgiveness of sins.
All nations.
Witnesses.
Power from on high.
Luke ends with joy.
But the story is not finished.
Acts is waiting.
And before you continue, allow Luke’s Gospel to leave one question within your heart:
What happens when someone who knows they have been found begins to live like someone who has received mercy?
Perhaps they become less interested in proving themselves.
Less eager to condemn.
Less controlled by possessions.
Less threatened by someone else’s welcome.
More willing to repent.
More ready to forgive.
More attentive to the overlooked.
More dependent in prayer.
More generous.
More truthful.
More humble.
More secure in grace.
And increasingly willing to follow the Saviour who came:
“to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Let that truth increasingly shape the way you see God, think, trust, love, respond and live.
Continue Your Journey Through Luke
The Overview has helped you see Luke’s great movement – from God’s promised salvation arriving in Jesus, through His compassionate ministry and journey towards Jerusalem, to the cross, resurrection and worldwide commission.
Now come closer.
Walk through Luke chapter by chapter.
Listen to the songs.
Watch the meals.
Notice the people Jesus sees.
Pay attention to His prayers.
Take His warnings about pride, money and self-righteousness seriously.
Watch grace move towards the lost.
And above all, keep your eyes upon the Saviour Luke has carefully placed before you:
Jesus Christ – the Son of Man who came to seek and save the lost.
→ Explore Luke Chapter by Chapter
→ Continue to John