Look to the reading of God’s word, if you please join me in prayer. Father God, indeed, you are the source of all light, and by your word, you give light to our souls. We ask then that you would pour out upon us a spirit of wisdom and understanding. That being taught by you in holy scriptures, our hearts, minds will be open to know all that pertains to life and wholeness. And this we ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord, in his name we pray. Amen. Luke 4, beginning in verse 16. And he, Jesus, came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of Prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written, ‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. ‘ He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of the sight to the blind, to set at those who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, ‘Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing the word of the Lord. We all are aware that the power of words is both amazing and limited. We can remember words spoken to us from years ago that either hurt us or shaped us. The effects of that can be reverberating through decades. And yet in another way, we know our words are limited. I can’t make things happen just by speaking them. To simply say something and it occurs. I think that’s probably part of the reason that we have that interest in those types of shows with magic and people being able to do things and say things and make them into realities. It would be nice just to be able to do an abracadabra and turns something like broccoli into edible food. Alas, it’s not to be. We understand we’re Their power, their limits. We understand the word made flesh. God comes to us in his word. We ask that question, how is it that God’s word transforms and changes us.
God’s spirit-filled words have real power and real authority. They first liberate us, and then they call us to respond. At times, this is instant, and other times, these changes come through the slow march of progression. Our lives are filled with both of those. The frustration that we can experience in our slowness to respond to the Lord, to actually be the redeemed people that the Lord has called us to be. And yet the Lord does transform us through the proclamation of his son. We are then called to go forth in the spirit-filled power of the gospel. We see here in Luke 14, Jesus entering into his ministry that had been prepared long in advance for him. In verse 16, it tells us that he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. As was his custom, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and they stood up to read. As was his custom, Jesus attended weekly synagogue services. When people claimed to be followers of Jesus and think that church is optional, they are not following Jesus, how important it was to be with God’s people in weekly worship. The synagogue service was very different than what happened in the temple in Jerusalem.
Jewish people would gather locally together for the weekly Sabbath. Typically, the liturgy of the synagogue would begin with the singing of several psalms. There would be a couple of different readings, and people would do so by standing up. First, they would do so in Hebrew, and then that was translated into Aramaic, which was the common language of the Jewish people. Then there was this exposition or a preaching on those readings, and that was done from the person sitting down. We see both of those in our text this morning. The service ended with the reciting of the 18 benedictions. Jesus came that day. He already had a growing reputation. Says that Jesus returned in the power of the spirit to Galilee, and the report of Him went out through all the surrounding country, and he taught in their synagogues being glorified by all. Then Jesus comes to his hometown, and there he takes the scroll. They’re not verse markers, so he’s rolling the scroll, specifically to what he wanted to speak on. He stands up and he reads from Isaiah 61. As Jesus does this, we see this spirit-filled proclamation, followed by a very mixed human response.
He begins, The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. The spirit of the Lord is upon me. In the Old Testament, when we see that phrase, it speaks of the Lord divinement choosing someone and enabling them to perform a purpose and a task. Because he has anointed me. In the Old Testament, when it came to anointing, it was a commissioning, a consecrating, an authorizing. Prophets were not usually anointed, exception be Elisha, but priests and kings were anointed. The Lord anoints him. For what purpose? To proclaim the good news to the poor. What’s the good news and who are the poor? Well, we’ll look at in a minute the good news. But the poor refer to those of low means, materially and spiritually, to both. Now, here’s a modern problem. There has emerged what I think of as a useless distinction between conservative and liberal when it comes to biblical theology. Rather than those terms, I think it’d be better to say belief and unbelief because both exist in both groups. It usually gets played out that Conservatives are concerned with the spiritual problems, therefore poor just means those who are sinners, while the Liberals are concerned with the physical problems, and therefore the are those who are financially poor and oppressed.
These are not helpful categories because they’re not biblical ones. The Bible speaks a great deal about issues of social justice. The Bible speaks a great deal about issues of personal morality. It’s not either or, it’s both and. Jesus healed the physically blind, and he opened the eyes of the spiritually blind. That’s why it is good news. It’s the whole person. This is what Jesus has done. I appreciate New Testament scholar Darryl Bach. He summarizes this really well. He said, The gospel does have social implications, not so much directly for society as it does for how the redeemed community approaches human and social structures. With compassion, concern, love, truth, and service are to be concretely expressed by the church just as they were evidenced by Jesus. Jesus. Those who follow Jesus look like Jesus. The concerns of Christ become our concerns for the whole person. There’s no contradiction between caring for people and the message of the gospel. Those are dovetailed together. Jesus then, continuing to read from Isaiah, he says, And he has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovering the sight of the blind, and to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Now, last week we saw how there is an overall confusion in the first century of who the Messiah was to be. Some thought him as a prophet like Elijah. Some spoke of the prophet like Moses. Some thought him as in the line of David, a king, or maybe a military ruler of some kind. Lots of ideas floating around of what this coming Messiah what it was to look like. We saw how Jesus was both the coming king in the line of David and the prophet like Moses who was to come. Jesus draws these themes together in himself. The preaching and the proclaiming was certainly what the prophets did. But a prophet could not set people free. That was a kingly function. The year of the Lord’s favor, that was a Priestley function. Jesus is prophet, Jesus is priest, Jesus is king. Verse 19, the Year of the Lord’s Favor. The commentators refer to this as the Year of Jubilee, which is from Leviticus 25. Every 50 years, a ram’s horn was blown and the land went back to the original owners and indentured servants were released. It was a great moment of liberation. Jesus here is using this analogy, speaking of the picture of forgiveness and salvation debts being released.
Then in verse 20, he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and he sat down, said, The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. He’s getting ready to preach what he just spoke on. Then he began to say, Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. When Jesus reads from Isaiah 61, those in the synagogue would immediately think of the advent of the coming of the new era of God’s salvation. Only They were deeply longing for this, waiting and waiting and expecting that someday this would occur. Now, here’s this one from their own midst standing not proclaiming this. By quoting from Isaiah, he’s answering the question of what Messiah would he be? He certainly is a prophetic Messiah, and his anointing with the spirit and power tells us he’s a a kingly and Priestley Messiah as well. He’s the Messiah who will preach the good news to the poor and enable them to be set free. He’s the bearer of the spirit. And what is true of all the different states that he speaks of, the poor, the blind, the captives, the oppressed, what’s true of all of them is their helplessness.
They indeed are overwhelmed. There’s nothing they can do to change their circumstances. It is beyond their power. As one pastor puts it, Jesus comes to proclaim himself as sight, as healing, as deliverance. That’s what the Bible means by grace, divine mercy for the helpless, freedom to those who are in bondage, life for those who are dead. That’s what people find when they believe in Jesus Christ. Now, Jesus read only half of one of the verses from Isaiah to the year of the Lord’s favor, and what he left out is, and the day of vengeance of our God. Wedged between all these wonderful words is this line from the Messiah, Proclaim the day of the vengeance of God. Most Christians have understood this to be because of Jesus’s two-part coming. His first coming is the advent of this good news. His second coming will be the culmination in that day of judgment. In between is this proclamation going forward in power. Now, to be sure, Jesus did not shy away from the message of coming judgment. He spoke of that more than anyone else. You do not have the good news without understanding the bad. There’s really bad news.
The bad news is we’re lost and locked in our sins. The good news is we don’t have to stay there because Jesus comes to set us free. There is judgment even while Jesus comes to grant us salvation. And what we see is this proclamation has power to change lives. It wasn’t an empty word. But with it, there’s also this human response. How did his hometown people respond? Well, it’s very mixed. Verse 22 said, All spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son? ‘ There’s amazement along with skepticism. It isn’t like a hometown athlete coming back and everyone cheering on the local hero. No, this local boy was saying something else. He’s telling these people who have been waiting and longing for this Messiah, saying, The one you have been waiting for, the culmination of all of our religious history, I’m it. It’s me. You You can imagine what that would sound like. I saw this kid growing up. What do you mean he’s the one? And so there’s this mixture of skepticism and belief. And then Jesus does something strange.
He seems to intentionally poke them. Verse 23, he said, Doubtless you will quote to me the proverb physician, heal yourself. What we’ve heard you do in Capernaum, do also here in your hometown as well. They wanted to see signs and wonders to back this up. This follows Jesus everywhere he goes. But the test of a true prophet is his words. It’s his message. Jesus responds ‘Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there are many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, and Elijah was sent to none of them, but only one widow in the land of Sidon. Non-israelite. There were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman, the Syrian. Non-israelite enemy of Israel. They were both outsiders. It was salvation for the unworthy. What did they do with this great response of God’s grace going out to others beyond their borders? Verse 28, When they heard these things, things all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. They rose up and drove Jesus out of town, and he brought him to the brow of the hill on which your town was built so they could throw him down the cliff.
But passing through In the midst, he went away. Now, it seems this wrath was demonically flamed in some way. To go to the extreme of trying to throw a man over a cliff is quite an overreaction to what he was saying. But it’s a shock. Jesus’ proclamation, Jesus’ preaching, it’s utterly rejected. Think about that. Here we have the kindest, most noble man who ever lived, morally perfect, filled with grace and compassion. He spoke with both power and authority, and still he was not widely received or believed upon. How could that be? Because those who were looking for an earthly kingdom were frustrated and angry when Jesus failed to deliver the goods as they saw it. The problem was not the proclamation of good news. The problem was that there were a few people who were spiritually poor enough to receive it. They all had an agenda, and Jesus wouldn’t follow the agenda. We see here this word, proclaim. It’s used three times. Salvation comes by a proclamation. How? Because Jesus is both the messenger and the message. He is the one filled with the spirit. He will accomplish what he proclaims. The word here for release and in liberties, the same word used for forgiveness, depending on the context.
Same idea, to release, to send away, to forgive from debts, from guilt, from penalties. This is what Jesus is doing. This proclamation of good news in spirit-filled power is doing these very things. There’s no other message out there like this. You hear me say that, and I truly mean it. There is no other message out there like the message of Jesus. It does not exist outside of the gospel. Frederick Max Mueller was a preeminent German scholar who was Oxford’s first professor of comparative philology. He was a Sanskrit scholar, which is the language of ancient India. I’m going to read to you a part of a speech he gave to the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1901. The British and Foreign Bible Society, Professor Mueller came and he said, I may say that for 40 years I carried out my duties as professor of Sanskrit. I devoted as much time to the study of the Holy Books of the East as any other human being in the world. And I ventured to tell you this, you who are gathered here, what I have found to be the basic note, one single cord of all these holy books, be it they to the Veda of the Brahams, Purana of Siva or Vishnu, the Quran of the Muslims, the Vita, the Sintivesta, of the Parises, etc.
The one basic note and core that runs through all of them is salvation by works. They all teach that salvation must be bought and that you own your own works and merits in the purchase price. You buy your way. He goes on, Our own Bible, our sacred Book from the East, is from start to finish a protest against this doctrine. True, good works are also required in this Holy Book, and that even more emphatically than any other holy book from the East. But the works referred to are the outflow of a grateful heart. They are only the thank offerings, only the fruit of our faith. They are never the ransom of a true disciple of Christ. Let us not close our eyes to whatever is noble and true and pleasing in these other books. But let us teach Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslims that there is but one book from the East that can be their comfort in the Solomon hour when they must pass entirely alone into the invisible world. It is a holy book which contains a message, a message which is surely true and worthy of full acceptance and concern of all humans, men, women, and children, that Christ came into the world to save sinners.
Forty years, devotion to the ancient books of the East, religious books. He’s I mean, Christianity is a protest against them because Jesus came to the world to save sinners, not sinners trying to figure out how to save themselves. It is this proclamation that changes lives and power It’s the proclamation that also divides. One cannot remain indifferent to Jesus. What makes people angry is that to be transformed by him, they must first acknowledge that they are spiritually bankrupt. They’re morally blind. They are in to their own sin, to their flesh, and to the devil. To look forward to an earthly kingdom alone will end in your frustration. Jesus will not let you dismiss him or domesticate him. Domesticate it to private agendas. This is what it should look like for our time and our place. This is what the kingdom here and now should look like. Jesus said, I’ll have nothing to do with it. It’ll look like my proclamation that my Father has sent me to reclaim, not your petty agendas. People hate him for it. Even now, you and I then, in his name, are sent out as spirit-filled ambassadors. There are men, women, and children for whom God has appointed life in Christ through his words out of your mouth.
Jesus. Just like Jesus, there will be those who will reject his words in you. It’s not about how clever you are. If only I could just figure out the right way to say it. It’s not about getting people in the right mood and setting them up for the right moment. It’s about the confrontation that those words of Christ have with them. Will they surrender or not. Our job is just to faithfully proclaim. We tell people the words of Jesus. Our job is to faithfully model Jesus’ actions in compassion, concern, love, truth, and service that are concretely expressed by us. That’s our job. We don’t see what happens inside a person, someone going from spiritual death to life. That’s God’s job. You think about that, what has been given to us? What’s been given to us are words of life. How often We know we use our words for other purposes. Either we can curse people, we can run them down, we can belittle people, we can bring to them everything but life. We do that at times and we feel rightly so a great remorse that we ought to repent of. But do you know the good news even there?
It’s the power of Christ to undo your terrible words. That’s good news. I’ve said terrible words. I thought terrible words. I don’t want on display the things that I thought or said any more than you do. Oh, my goodness, you who are Prince. Come on. You need the power of Christ to undo a lot of words. That’s good news because we can’t. He can. He brings life. The problem is so often, and we see this, we have this idea that, I’m in, they’re out. I’m in, they’re out. I don’t like those people who are out. They got to be in. They got to be in this circle. The salvation happens over here, though we’re sinners. Those people are terrible. That’s why they were so mad with Jesus, because Jesus is telling them, You know those people you don’t like? They’re in because I can put them in. You shouldn’t be angry about that. You should be on your knees in great gratitude and thanksgiving that you, a sinner, would also be brought into that kingdom, just like they who are sinners are brought into that kingdom. That’s transformative. That’s good news for us. Our spirit filled Messiah, our prophet, priest, and king has come to undo our state of sin and misery.
With this message of proclamation that had been announced hundreds of years before, waiting for the day, the proper time, the fullness of time, when the Messiah would come and he would release captives. He would heal actually blind eyes, and he would heal metaphorically blind eyes. He would bring hope to people. There would be The culture’s changed because of him. Kingdoms collapse, Kingdoms rise, but the word of our Lord will stand forever. Then we, with David, the Psalmist. May the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, oh God. That our words, aligning with his purpose, his mission, his focus, his agenda, That we would go forth with that. And where we have failed miserably, that the power of what Jesus has accomplished on the cross, that our sins are actually forgiven. That we can come confessing that receding forgiveness, receiving renewal, even praying that, God, please undo the things that I’ve done. He’s a God of hope and a God of resurrection. There is no other religion on the planet that does this. Yes, there’s an exclusivity to Christianity. And yes, when you tell people that, particularly in our time, they don’t necessarily throw you over the cliff because outside are brought in, that sounds like really good news to us.
What they’ll throw you over the cliff for is you’re saying, well, actually, there’s only one way to be brought in. Well, that’s not acceptable. And that changes through history and time. That point people get upset and mad about does change, but it always ends up being the same. Will you submit your life to the Lordship and salvation of Christ, or will you try to make him submit to your rule and reign? Jesus will have no equal. There is only room for one king on the throne. And praise be to God, it’s Jesus. Pray with me. Father, as we come before you this day, we say thank you. We are here because of the power of Jesus. His words, Father, your spirit-filled words of life have given us, Father, hope in him have given us transformation. Father, we just say thank you. We bless you for your goodness. Father, we pray and ask that you would forgive us as well. Lord, we who are blood-bought people the kingdom have used our words to speak death to others. Father, we pray that you would forgive us. Father, where we have in cowardice not complained what is true and right and good about Jesus, we ask that you would forgive us.
And Father, that you would then use us as your ambassadors of this good news of Jesus. And Lord, that you would be pleased to set people free through his words out of our mouth. We pray and ask all in his mighty name. Amen. Please stand. We.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.