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I’ve got to say I love the contrast between Mark and Luke. Luke is a physician and he writes as a historian; there a lot of editorial asides in Luke that are not there in Mark. And, it makes Luke again unique from Matthew and unique from Mark and unique from John. I would title Luke, “A Great Big Gospel,” because it's very clear as you work your way through Luke that Luke is presenting that Jesus did not come to establish a religious movement. 

He came to take over your life; He came to propel a gospel through His own person and work that reaches to every area of your life. One of the sad things that we tend to do is we tend to break our life up into the secular and the spiritual, things that are religious and things that aren't.  And Luke just blows that away. It's very clear that God is after every area of our lives and He welcomes us to renewal of every part of us, physical and spiritual, external and internal, now and the future, God and others. 

And at the core of this, and this is very important, it's a unique contribution in Luke, is a gospel for the heart. Luke makes it very clear why the gospel has to reach to every area of your life; it is that the gospel is about renewal of the heart. Now, if you take all the passages that describe the heart in the Bible and you put them down into one definition, the heart is the causal core of your personhood, the heart is the steering wheel; what rules your heart then exercises inescapable influence over your life and behavior.  And so, if the gospel doesn't have your heart, if the grace of God doesn't renew your heart, it doesn't have you. 

But here's what's important, you never leave your heart at the door. Your heart is operating in family and friends, in entertainment, and at work, as a citizen, in sex, in finances, in every situation, every relationship, every location of your life, the heart is operating! And Luke makes it very clear that you live out of the heart and makes it very clear that God is after heart change; humility versus power and prejudice, mercy versus a legalistic condemnation, acceptance with God versus living for favor with people, spiritual riches versus living for money, that there's radical change. It's really good news that God wants your heart because I don't know about you, well I do know about you; our biggest problem is not outside of us; our biggest problem in all of life lives inside of us, the Bible names it, it’s sin.

And so, I don't need just be rescued from things outside of me, I need to be rescued inside of me, I need to be rescued from me. And if that rescue wasn’t provided in the personal work of the Lord Jesus Christ, it just doesn't work. And so, what we have is this great big gospel of forgiveness for the heart, peace of heart, hope of heart. 

You see, if your heart changes, then you will change in every dimension of your life.  It really is a great big gospel; you become a new you wherever you are in every dimension of your life, not just religiously new, not just new in a formal religious sense, but completely new in every way. And I don't know if you're getting this; that is huge, glorious, great news. It is a great big gospel because it's a gospel for the heart.