Luke 4:14–30

0:00 the United States of America has a lot of traditions we do a lot of things as Americans that we've been doing for 250 years fireworks that's one of America's greatest traditions we do it better than anybody else in the world and a couple of times a year July the 4th and New Year's we set off fireworks our own city of Louisville celebrates thunder over Louisville with a gigantic fireworks display we say the Pledge of Allegiance we salute the flag we sing the star Spangled Banner. All kinds of things that we do as traditions here in the United States of America.

0:32 But I think one of the greatest of American traditions, one that is fairly rare in the history of the world, is insulting the guy who is president. We love doing that and it is a bipartisan issue. Whoever is president for four years is repeatedly gonna get insulted. They're going to get insulted in the media. They're going to get insulted in private conversation. It's just something we do. And it goes all the way back to the great American tradition that we here in America don't have kings. We have politicians. We don't have rulers. We have administrators of the government.

1:13 The president is not an emperor. He is one who presides over a government. And so we don't have to be afraid of insulting him. One of the best ways that people insult the president is turning down invitations to dinner at the White House. And it's happened since the very beginning of the Republic. Most of the time when somebody turns down an invitation, they do it loud and they do it publicly. And it usually comes with some kind of a political statement. So, Mr. President, I am refusing your invitation to the White House because I don't like this or that policy. There was one brave soul, though, back in the 1960s who refused a dinner invitation to the JFK White House, not for any particular reason, but just because he was kind of a jerk. His name was William Faulkner. He's a great author, Nobel Prize, you know, laureate in literature. And at one time in the 1960s, JFK was, John F. Kennedy was having a dinner at the White House for 49 different Nobel laureates. So American Nobel Prize winners. It was a gathering of some of the greatest minds that have ever lived in the 20th century, and JFK wanted to honor them with this dinner.

2:20 Well, all 49 of them accepted the invitation except for William Faulkner. And everybody thought, why is he refusing this invitation? What's going on? And so they decided to interview him and see what political issue was keeping him from going to the JFK White House. So they asked him and it turned out that he didn't have any political beef at all. He just looked at the reporter who asked him the question and said, that's over 100 miles from my house. That seems like a long way just to go to eat.

2:54 And that was it. That's all he gave them. This great invitation from the President of the United States to all the greatest minds of the 20th century. And William Faulkner just said, nah, that is T-L-D-N-R. That is too long. I did not read it. I'm not going to this dinner. He refused the invitation. Now, I know some of you are looking at that and you're going, what? a hero. I love that. I love the American tradition of turning down invitations to the White House. I love it that we don't treat the president like a king. I love it that William Faulkner just said, no, I ain't doing that. I'm not going to that dinner. But what if the invitation was more than that? What if the invitation wasn't just from the presider over a particular nation's government, But what if the invitation was from the king of the universe?

3:48 Would it be heroic to reject that invitation just because it asked a little too much of you? I don't think so much. But that's what we're talking about today. We're going to be continuing our study of the gospel of Luke. Take a Bible if you've got one and turn to Luke chapter 4. That's where we're going to be starting right in the middle of that. We looked at the first half of chapter 4 last week. We're going to be looking at the second half of it. or at least second third of it, you could say, this week. If you're using one of these Red Pew Bibles that's in front of you right here, sometimes they're in the pew rack in front of you, maybe under the seats.

4:22 But if you're using one of these, you'll be able to find Luke 4 on page 859. You are, maybe this church thing is not familiar to you. If that's true of you, then you are welcome. And we want you to know that you're welcome here with us at 3rd Avenue. We're glad that you're here. Let me just tell you what we're going to be doing for the next few minutes. we're going to be putting all of our attention onto a particular passage inside Luke chapter 4. So if you're unfamiliar with the Bible, if you grab one of those Bibles, turn to page 859, you're going to see a big number 4 on that page.

4:55 That's Luke chapter 4. And then inside that, you'll see little numbers. They're kind of bolded, superscripted numbers. Those are what we call verse numbers, which is just a way for us to find each other as we're talking about this. These things were invented about a thousand years ago, something like that. and we divided the Bible up so that we could find each other as we're talking. So if I say something up here like look down at verse 7 or whatever, you're going to know that we are in Luke chapter 4, and you'll be able to find the little number 7 or whatever it is, and you'll be able to see what we're doing.

5:27 You will do well. I mean, just a fair word of warning. You will do very well to actually grab a Bible, turn over, and go to the various places that I direct your attention to. If you don't do that, if you don't have the text in front of you, I promise you're going to feel a little bit lost. You're not quite going to know what I'm talking about. But if you've got a Bible in front of you, you'll be able to see what's going on and you'll be able to follow the sermon a whole lot better. Just a little bit of a running start. Over the last few weeks, we've seen that Luke's purpose in this book that he has written has been to lay out in an orderly fashion for a friend of his named Theophilus a case for Jesus actually being the long-awaited Messiah or King of the Jewish people.

6:09 So far in the first three and a half chapters or so, he's laid out various events that begin at least to prove this. So he's talked about Jesus' virgin birth. He's talked about the angels that spoke and sang at Jesus' birth. He's talked about his presentation at the temple and a couple of different one prophetess and one prophet who recognized this baby for who he is and proclaimed his identity. He's told us about his ancestry as a son of David, son of Adam, son of God. He's just been systematically laying out who Jesus is. And he's starting to get to the point of describing why Jesus has come in the first place.

6:44 So last week, we saw Jesus taken by the Holy Spirit into the desert to face his people's mortal enemy, Satan. And unlike Adam, unlike Israel, Jesus, for the first time in human history, wins the battle against Satan. He does not succumb to these temptations that Satan threw at him. Remember these three temptations that had taken down Adam, taken down David, taken down the whole nation of Israel, and they don't work on Jesus. And so Jesus, for the first time, defeats Satan. That's what we looked at last week.

7:15 Today, Jesus comes out of the desert, and we see the beginning of his public ministry among the people. So this is kind of the first time that Jesus shows up among the people doing the things that Jesus is going to do for the next, well, really three years until his crucifixion. But the way Luke presents the beginning of Jesus' ministry is not, I think, what you would normally expect from a story like this. Normally, I think, especially if you're trying to make the case and convince people that this guy is the real deal, you start your story about his ministry and his life with success stories, right?

7:54 You want to convince people that he's the real deal. So you tell stories about how Jesus wowed the crowds and won their acclaim and they loved him and he was just the celebrity and all the rest. That's what you do if you want to convince people that he's the real deal. Luke, though, doesn't do that at all. Instead, right here at the very beginning of Jesus' public ministry among the people, Luke shows us an instance of, weirdly, failure and rejection. So in this first glimpse of Jesus encountering the crowds, they are not convinced at all.

8:30 And in fact, they wind up rejecting him so hard that they want to throw him off a cliff. Let's read it. Look at Luke chapter 4. We're going to start reading in verse 14. Here's what Luke writes. 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 the prophet Isaiah was given to him he unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was 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 sight to the blind to set at liberty 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 this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And all spoke well of him and marveled at the

9:34 gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, is not this Joseph's son? And he said to them, doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, physician heal yourself. What we've heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well. He said, truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land. And Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and That is just a really surprising way to start things off, isn't it?

10:36 I mean, Luke is not exactly playing the hype master here, is he? I mean, he is just not telling us the stories that would normally get you hyped up about Jesus. In fact, if you look at 14 and 15, he takes these first few successful days of Jesus' ministry in Galilee and reduces them to just like two sentences. He didn't say anything about Jesus' successes. No, where Luke dwells, what he really wants us to look at, what he wants to put our attention on in detail, is this instance in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth where the people totally reject him to the point that basically, according to the law of Deuteronomy, they declare him to be a false prophet, and they're going to execute him by throwing him off a cliff and then probably stoning him.

11:20 That's how well it went. Now, why does Luke do that? Why does he put our eyes on something that looks like a failure of Jesus? Well, I think it's because for whatever set of reasons, Our minds as human beings tend to get more sharply focused when rejection is the matter at hand. You ever notice that? Our minds tend to focus more when there's rejection at hand than when there's acceptance. I mean, if Luke had started out with a series of stories about people being amazed by Jesus, people embracing Jesus, people loving Jesus, that's exactly what we'd expect.

11:59 And our minds would have a tendency to just kind of nod along. Yes, of course, the people love Jesus. We knew you were going to say that. That's not surprising. But to see people rejecting him, I mean, especially after the way Luke has set the whole thing up in the first three chapters, after everything he said, to see people just kind of go, eh, no, it snaps our minds into action. And the thing we start to think is, what in the world? I was not expecting that. What are they doing and why are they doing it? I mean, what are they missing that they're rejecting him so hard? Or maybe what are they getting right that I'm not getting right?

12:33 What are they seeing in Jesus that should make me reject him? That's what our minds do. Seeing other people's rejection of Jesus forces our minds to a point of decision. Active decision rather than just passive going along and whatever. But I think there's more to it than that even. Beyond that, I think Luke is doing something else. I think he's not just showing us that the people rejected Jesus. He's also showing us why they rejected him.

13:05 And it has nothing to do with him. It has everything to do with them, with things that are going on in their hearts. So by showing us why they rejected him, he's taking aim at the one thing, I think, above all else that keeps people from accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ. The one thing above all else that keeps people from accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know what that is? In forms as varied as the stars in the heavens, it is pride. It is pride that keeps people from embracing Jesus and accepting his gospel.

13:41 It's the belief in one form or another that I am, for whatever set of reasons, too good for this. That I don't need this. That all of this talk about forgiveness of sin and salvation is below me. Either because I don't think of myself as being as much of a sinner as the Bible says. Or maybe it's just because all of that seems childish to me and I'll handle it on my own. Thank you. It's pride. And that's what Luke wants you to look square in the face so that he can challenge it wherever it's showing up in your life.

14:14 So here's the main idea. The main idea that Luke is getting across to us with this story is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is for the desperate, not the entitled. The gospel of Jesus Christ is for the desperate, not the entitled. So friends, watch out that your pride doesn't slam the door on your own salvation. Watch out that your pride, whatever form it takes, and it's subtle, it's demonic. But whatever form it takes, watch out that your pride doesn't slam the door on your own salvation.

14:47 If you look at this story in chapter 4, second, third or so of chapter 4, it's just one narrative, right? And so it's a little bit hard to break it up, but I think you can consider it really in kind of two parts. So the first part is verses 14 to 21. That's the first kind of act in the action, right? And that tells about Jesus reading the scriptures in the synagogue. We'll talk more about that in a few minutes. Second part of it is that second half, 22 to 30, which is essentially just the people's reaction to that reading of the scriptures and then Jesus giving them a warning that has to do with a couple of stories from the Old Testament.

15:20 And we'll break those down too in a few minutes. So those two parts, Jesus' reading of the scripture and then the people's reaction to that. Two points to the sermon. Number one, the king's gracious invitation. That's essentially what Jesus does as he reads the scriptures. He makes an invitation to the people. And then number two, looking at that second part, the people's proud rejection of that invitation. Two points, the king's gracious invitation and number two, the people's proud rejection. So let's take a look at it. Number one, the king's gracious invitation.

15:52 And so the story today begins really with just a quick summary of what was probably, we don't exactly know, but probably just several days of ministry that Jesus did in the region of Galilee right after he was tempted by Satan. He's out in the desert and the Holy Spirit brings him back eventually after some, you know, the other gospels tell us that he was ministered to by angels out in the desert after the temptation. But eventually he comes back into civilization and he goes into this region that he's actually going to spend most of his time in called Galilee. Galilee included several different cities that you're probably familiar with.

16:25 So it's got Nazareth, and it's got Capernaum, and it's got, you know, Caesarea. Lots of different cities in Galilee, this region a little bit north of Jerusalem. Some of the other Gospels tell us a little bit about events that happened during this time that Luke just crushes down into two sentences. He doesn't tell us anything about it at all. And what he's doing is making his way more quickly to this event that takes place in Nazareth. So if you want to learn more about the Galilean ministry, at least in these first few days, you'll have to find that in Matthew and Mark and maybe even in John.

17:02 The wedding in Cana, for instance, when Jesus turns the water into wine. That probably happened during these days. But Luke rushes past all of that. He didn't say anything about any of that. Takes us straight to Jesus' hometown, Nazareth. Now, the story of what happens in Nazareth is set in what was a very normal, regular synagogue meeting. We don't exactly know where synagogue meetings came from. It wasn't a part of sort of, you know, the ancient Old Testament faith of the Jews. Probably synagogue practice rose up during the Babylonian captivity when the temple was destroyed, right?

17:37 The Jews couldn't center their religious worship on the temple. And so they started having these other gatherings where various ones of them would come together in a synagogue meeting to read together and to pray together and sing together. And over the centuries, there was a particular order to a synagogue meeting that got put together and was basically accepted. And what happens here in Luke 4 is just entirely typical. I mean, if you look in verse 16, in fact, you can see that this wasn't just a one-off kind of thing.

18:07 It says there that this was a custom for Jesus. So it was a very normal thing for him to go to a synagogue meeting, even though, you know, they'd go for the festivals to the temple. But the normal day-to-day practice, week-to-week practice, was to meet together in the synagogue. So Jesus had likely done this kind of thing many, many times. Now the way it worked was that basically you'd come together, the people would sit, the leaders would call the gathering to order. You would have songs, you would have prayers, you would have some readings of the Psalms. And then you would have a rotation of readings from both the Old Testament law and the Old Testament prophets, and then one of the men from a group would stand up and teach about the reading that had just been done. Now that probably sounds incredibly familiar to you because it's basically what we do here in every single one of our services, right? And Christian worship is sort of based on the practice of synagogues. We come together, we sing, we pray, we read the scriptures, and then one of the guys in the congregations, usually me, stands up and explains it to you. That's what we do as a church, and it's based on synagogue practice. And this was

19:10 entirely normal for Jews to do and for Jesus to do. In fact, he had probably, you know, he had probably done this sort of PM devotional thing many, many times in the synagogue. It just seems to have been a thing that he did. But this time, this time, Jesus did something entirely abnormal and atypical. So when the time came, the synagogue leader gave him the scroll of Isaiah.

19:40 They would have had a box, you know, back in the corner of the synagogue with all the books of the Old Testament written on scrolls. And they would have been, you know, in a sort of cloth sack. And so each time they would go and grab one of the scrolls and they would pull it out ceremonially and open it up to, you know, whatever was supposed to be read at the time. This time they go and get the Isaiah scroll. And Jesus deliberately turns the Isaiah scroll. You just have to roll it, right, to get it to the right spot. But he rolled it deliberately to Isaiah chapter 61. Now, why do I say deliberately?

20:12 Well, I mean, look at it. Chapter 4, verse 17. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll. So the synagogue leader didn't do that. Jesus unrolled the Isaiah scroll and found the place where it was written. He knew where he wanted to take him. And the place where he wanted to take him, that he rolled it and found, Isaiah 61, the place where he found was this particular passage right here.

20:45 We read it a little bit earlier in the service. Now, let's look at what he read. Verse 17, he unrolled the scroll, found the place where it was written. And then here's what he read. 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 sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

21:17 Okay. Now, that to you and me even might seem like just a normal reading of Scripture to us. But it wasn't. It wasn't just a normal reading of Scripture. And how do we know that it wasn't? Well, I mean, just look at the reaction of the people in the next verse, verse 20. He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. Now, he doesn't just go back to the pew and sit down as if nothing is happening. He sits down on the platform because that's how preachers and teachers did it, right? You would sit down and you would teach the people.

21:48 We don't do that. I don't sit up here in a chair and teach you, though that could have been our tradition. It's just not. But for the Jews, it was. A teacher, a preacher who's going to exposit God's word sits down in a chair, and so that's what Jesus does. He sits down, and look how Luke describes the reaction of the crowd. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Now, that's not a normal word. It doesn't just mean that they were patiently, kindly, normally looking at him because he was about to teach.

22:21 Luke only uses this word a few times, fixed on. He only uses it a few times. And every time he uses it, it's where there is enormous expectation about what's going to happen next. Or a couple of times it's because the eyes are fixed on Jesus because something awesome has already happened. Okay, so why is there such tension in the air after Jesus just reads scripture from Isaiah 61? Why are their eyes fixed on him?

22:53 Well, it's because something about what Jesus just did, something about the way he read that passage from Isaiah led them to believe that something was up. It led them to believe that something extraordinary was about to happen, and so their eyes are fixed on him to see what's going to happen next. So what was it? What about the way he read Isaiah 61 set them on edge? Well, to start to understand that, you've got to understand, first of all, just how deeply the Jewish people knew their scriptures. They knew them backward and forward, left and right. The words of the scriptures were ingrained in their minds and they could recite them word for word. Now, I don't want to overstate it because some of you are thinking, wow, the Old Testament's a really big book. How could they have the whole thing memorized quite like that? That's not what I mean. But there were certain passages in the Old Testament that were particularly famous for whatever reason, and those would have been ingrained in their minds. Kind of like, you know, John 3 16 for you and me right for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that

23:54 whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life right I don't even have to think to get those words to come out they just come and it's almost automatic you say recite John 3 16 all of us could do it right word for word for word for word so what shocked them about the reading of this particularly famous passage of scripture was that when Jesus read it he made changes to it he changed it in two ways first of all he added a line to isaiah 61 he added something to it that's not actually there in the old testament in fact really what he did was he pulled a line from earlier in isaiah and inserted it into isaiah 61 so if you look at the very, look at the very last line of verse 18. Very last line. See that? To set at liberty those who are oppressed. That's not there in Isaiah 61. It just doesn't exist. In fact,

24:55 that line actually shows up in Isaiah 58, but Jesus grabs it and sticks it in here. Why does he do that? Well, to be honest with you, it's not entirely clear why he does that. Christians have give him that a lot of thought, and we're not entirely sure why he picks that particular line and sticks it in here. But I think this is probably the best guess. I mean, first of all, notice how all the other descriptions of the Messiah here in Isaiah 61, notice how all the other descriptions have to do with proclaiming. Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to do what? Well, to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives. And then that proclaim actually controls the next line, proclaim the recovering of sight to the blind. Well, this last one is different. It's not a proclamation anymore. It's a doing. It's an action, not just a proclamation. So it may be that Jesus is saying, look, as the Messiah, I am not just here to talk.

25:52 I'm here to act. I'm here to do. That may be part of it. Another thing, though, it was just an audacious thing for Jesus to edit the prophet Isaiah. To stick something in there that's not supposed to be there. You just don't do that. You don't change the prophets. You don't edit the prophets. You don't take things away from them. You don't add things to them unless you have rightful authority to do so. And who has rightful authority to do that? Who has rightful authority to say what the scriptures mean and even to edit them only the ultimate lawgiver himself only the messiah who is also god second thing that he does another change that he makes to isaiah he stops the reading of isaiah 61 too early he stops the reading of isaiah 61 too early in fact he stops

26:58 it right in the middle of a sentence. Now the thing that set them all on edge is that every person in that room, every Jewish person in that room knew exactly how this reading went. It was like John 3, 16 for them, right? It just rolls off their tongue. I mean, we read it earlier, Isaiah 61, and that sentence doesn't end right there. How does it end? To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of my God. Jesus just leaves that off. And it was shocking to the people who were listening to it. I mean, what if I started saying, you know, like the Pledge of Allegiance?

27:44 You know, I pledge allegiance and all your minds are kind of rolling along with it and you're not expecting me to say anything different, but I say I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, one nation under God, indivisible. And I just stop. Well, you know there's another line that comes after that. And when I leave that line off with liberty and justice for all, you're wondering, what does Greg mean by that? Why did he leave off liberty and justice for all? What does he mean by leaving that off? Same question was in their minds. Why does he leave off the day of vengeance of our God? Well, do you know why? Do you know why he leaves it off?

28:19 Because at this point, at this point in history, the day of vengeance had not yet arrived. Only the day of salvation, only the year of the Lord's favor was there. It's incredible news. It's incredible news because we're going to talk about it more. But what Jesus is saying here is, this is me. This person, this great figure, this servant, conqueror, king that Isaiah is talking about in Isaiah 61. One, I want you all to know that it's me, but I'm not here to judge you yet.

28:50 I'm here to save you. It's incredibly good news. And friends, you realize that we're still in that time, right? We're still in the time where the year of the Lord's favor has been proclaimed by the Messiah and the day of vengeance has not yet started. Which means that God's arms are open wide to you in invitation to come to him and be saved from that day. The doors of salvation are wide open.

29:23 I mean, look down to verse 21. He began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Do you know that Luke, in various places throughout his two books, Luke and Acts, he uses the word today 19 different times. And the message that he's trying to get across to you is that right now, today, not tomorrow, but right now is the day of salvation. Everything that God has to offer is available to you now.

29:54 You don't have to wait until next week. You don't have to wait until tomorrow. You don't have to go through some ritual in order to be saved. It's just right there for the taking today. God's arms are wide open. The doors of salvation are wide open. I haven't come to condemn, Jesus said, but rather to save. That's why the people were on edge. That's why their eyes were fixed on him, even just because of the way he read this scroll.

30:28 But even that, even all of that that he did was nothing compared to what he said next. But to understand why it was so explosive, you've got to understand a little more about Isaiah and this particular passage that Jesus read. I think it was about a year, year and a half ago we studied the book of Isaiah. And basically what we found out, what we saw from Isaiah is that it's made up of three different parts. And each part of Isaiah introduces a great character, right, like a central figure. So part one, he introduces the Messiah, the king.

30:59 Part two, he introduces the suffering servant who dies in the place of his people. Part three, he introduces a conquering judge. And the real amazing thing about what Isaiah does there is that the king and the suffering servant and the conquering judge end up, once you start looking at the details, being exactly the same person. They end up being the divine royal savior of the people of God, the one who dies for them and then rises again and at the end comes back to judge their enemies. So that's what Isaiah is doing. He's presenting the Messiah of Israel.

31:31 Well, in the third part, the one about this anointed conquering judge that's going to come at the end of time, basically that judge is introduced in four different songs throughout that section. You have four sort of anthems of the conquering judge. And this one that Jesus reads is the second of those four anthems that's introducing the judge. And so what Jesus is saying, when he says that in verse 22 or 21, today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, and all of those Jewish people would have known it. He was saying, you know that conquering judge at the end of Isaiah, who's also the suffering servant, who's also the great king?

32:09 You know who that is? That's me. Today, this scripture that was foretelling the coming of that judge and king and servant, today, it's been fulfilled in your hearing. Now, we don't know what else Jesus said in his sermon. His sermon was definitely more than one sentence, right? I mean, it even says there in 21, he began to say to them. So Jesus would have said more, and we don't know what else Jesus said, But probably, I mean, you can just kind of guess that he went on to explain more about what his mission was as Messiah.

32:47 So he would have been kind of looking at the details of this passage in Isaiah. So if you look at it, verses 18 and 19, probably he would have pointed them to the four categories of people that the Messiah proclaims good news to. He probably would have spent some time talking about that. You see them there in 18? Four categories of people that Jesus, that the Messiah, proclaims good news to. The poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed. It just kind of goes right down the middle of it there. He's anointed me. Proclaim good news to the poor, the captives, the blind, and then to set at liberty those who are oppressed.

33:21 Now, it's important to talk about those for just a second. Because especially in the last couple of centuries or so, those phrases and categories of people have been used to try to say that the Messiah's main mission was really... Social liberation, social revolution. That basically he came to make the poor not poor, to let prisoners out of jail, to heal people physically, to end economic oppression. And therefore, if that was the Messiah's goal, social revolution, then Christians ought to be involved in that same kind of social revolutionary work.

33:55 And people who have taken that liberation gospel approach to things point to this, Luke chapter 4, as one of their main proof texts for that. But if you look at the text carefully, you'll see that that's just not the right way to read it. That's not what those images mean at all. And there are a couple of things in the text itself that make that extremely clear. So one thing that makes it clear is that if you know the Old Testament, then you know that each one of those categories, the blind, the oppressed, all of them, they're all well-known images for spiritual humility.

34:33 That's what they are. And Jesus himself uses the same, he'll use the same kind of words a little bit later on when he says, blessed are the poor, remember what he says? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Because that's what the imagery in the Old Testament of the poor means. Now, yes, sometimes it's used to describe an actually economically poor person. But always in the Old Testament, even physical poverty is used as a picture and an image of spiritual poverty. of being helpless before God.

35:07 And that's the kind of person who is truly ready to hear the good news. It's the person who knows he has nothing else to offer God. In fact, that's what it takes to even become a Christian, to come to Jesus and accept what he has to offer. You've got to come knowing that you are poor in spirit, that you are blind in spirit, that you are crushed in spirit, and you've got nothing but your own moral bankruptcy to offer him. you don't you don't come to jesus and in pride you don't come to him strutting into the throne room and say lord here's what i have to offer you here's my beginning negotiating point now what do you have to offer me in exchange that's not what you do you come to him you say lord i've got i've got nothing i am poor and wretched and pitiable and naked and blind. I am crushed and helpless. And if you don't help me, I'm helpless.

36:05 And that's when the king's heart is moved to mercy and compassion. It's toward the person who knows he's got nothing, and each one of those categories in the Old Testament refers to that. Also, look at the verbs here. Look at the verbs in verses 18 and 19. It is really critical when you're reading the Bible to look at the actual words that the Bible uses. We as Christians have a terrible tendency to just sort of look, you know, at the Bible and cross our eyes, right, and blur it out and say, well, I see something about the poor there, and there's oppression and liberty.

36:46 Well, that sounds like social revolution to me. We do that all the time with the Scriptures, not just here, but everywhere. We blur our eyes, we see words like poor and oppressed, and we think, oh, Jesus is saying that he's going to be a social and economic revolutionary, and we as Christians, therefore, ought to do the same thing. We need to be social revolutionaries too. But you have to look at the words. And what do the words say? What does Jesus actually do for the poor here? What does he actually do for the captives?

37:16 What does he do for the blinds? He proclaims to them. He proclaims good news to them. In the Greek, you know what that is? He evangelizes them. Eu angelo, right? Evangelos. It means to speak the good news. He speaks good news to them. He evangelizes them, which should clue us in, again, that we're talking about something spiritual here, not social. In fact, when Jesus does physically heal the blind, it's always a metaphor of spiritual blindness.

37:54 I mean, for that matter, as far as we know from the Gospels, he never actually set a single prisoner free, physically speaking. So if you're going to say that Jesus' mission was to set the captives free, go find one. That's not what he was about. He was about proclaiming the good news of salvation to those who are spiritually helpless. So you see the point? The point of this reading, the point of Jesus doing this and calling his people to follow him in it, the point is not to rally you and me to launch a spiritual revolution for the poor and the oppressed.

38:26 Jesus didn't do that. The apostles didn't do that. That's not what the church is about. The point of this reading is to get you to look at yourself and realize, oh, I'm not supposed to see the poor and the blind and the oppressed over there and go help them. That's not the point of this. It may be a good thing to do at some point, but that's not the point of this. What you're supposed to do is not see the poor and the blind and the wretched over there. You're supposed to say, oh, I am the poor. I am the blind.

38:56 I am the wretched. That's who I am. I'm the crushed. And then you're in exactly the right place to come to Jesus in spiritual humility, spiritual helplessness, and take from his hand what you could never earn for yourself. That's the invitation. And the question is, how will the people now respond? That's point number two. Look with me at point number, well, point number two, the people's proud rejection.

39:30 Look with me at starting in verse 22. So starting in 22, you get the people's response here to what Jesus is saying. And at first, it really doesn't look terrible, right? So he says in 21, the scripture's been fulfilled in your hearing. He probably said some more things about those sorts of things up in Isaiah 61. And in 22, all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. I mean, that's good, right? That's good. They spoke well of him. They marveled at the gracious words that were coming out of his mouth.

40:02 That's a good response, right? Well, if so, why do you get this abrupt change in the middle of 22? They spoke well of him. They marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, is not this Joseph's son? And then in 23, he starts rebuking them. Why do you get that abrupt change? Why does it all go sour in the middle of verse 22 after such a promising start of marveling at him and speaking well of him and the gracious words coming out of his mouth? Well, it's because the first part of 22 is not a good response to what Jesus has just said.

40:38 It's just not. It's not a good response. Right from the start, even in the first part of 22, they're not responding to Jesus with the humility that his identity demands. They're responding to him with pride. And they're doing it in several different ways. So first, just look again at the start of 22. All spoke well of him, marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. Why are they marveling at his words?

41:10 Why are they speaking well of him? Is it because they believe him? That he's the great conquering judge of Isaiah 61, the suffering servant? the king is because they believe him? No. They're just admiring his preaching skill. The boy's got a silver tongue. And so, you know, as he stood at the door, probably one just like that, as they were walking out of the synagogue, they all went by and some of them patted him on the head, others shook his hand and said, enjoyed that, pastor. Enjoyed it. Enjoyed it. Enjoyed it. They didn't believe him.

41:42 They heard his silver words. They heard his silver tongue, but they're not listening to what he said. They're certainly not accepting it. I mean, it's different, right? It's different when you stand at the door after preaching, but it's similar, right? And occasionally over the last 15 years or so, I've gotten it, you know, people say, man, you really know how to talk. And I'll go, okay, you know, well, thanks, I guess, or, you know, you're a good preacher or whatever else, you know, thanks. But did you hear what I said? Was it anything more to you than just being entertained by how I was saying it?

42:16 Did you actually listen to what I was saying? That must have been kind of the question Jesus was asking. They spoke well of him. Good job, boy. They marveled at his silver tongue, but they weren't really listening. Another thing, look at the second part of 22, where they say there, isn't this Joseph's son? Isn't this Joseph's son? Well, at least here, they've kind of moved just a little bit. past his rhetorical skills, and they're at least considering what he actually said, right? You can tell in the way they ask the question. He, okay, he's just said that he's the fulfillment of Isaiah 61. He's saying that he is the Messiah, but hold on. Isn't this just Joseph's son, the carpenter?

43:04 I mean, didn't we like play with this kid in elementary school, and you know, didn't, haven't we played games with him, and hasn't he been, didn't he build our shed last week with his dad? this is just joseph's son right he can't be the messiah he just can't be because we know him and it's the same you you you can feel this it's the same kind of pride that makes your teeth grind when a classmate of yours is more successful than you i don't know if you've been back to a class reunion or anything like that just walk into that class reunion you see somebody that you knew as a kid and that kid is rich now or that kid has grown up to be some powerful congressman or something and it sets your teeth on edge doesn't bother you so much when it's somebody that you never knew right yeah that guy he just got lucky but you're like jimmy wound up being rich like how the heck did that happen it sets your teeth on edge when you know them and that's what's going on with these people they just cannot accept it's this little kid they went to elementary

44:07 school with and that built their shed is the great king of Israel. They won't accept it. It's a particular kind of pride. And then look at 23. 23 is where Jesus starts to rebuke them. He sees their unbelief. He sees that they're just condescending to him, patting him on the head, and he starts to confront them. And he does so essentially by telling them what they're thinking. So he says to them, 23, doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, physician, heal yourself. In In other words, you're saying all this big stuff to us, Jesus, about who you are. Well, prove it, right?

44:38 Prove that your big words are actually true and good, right? Physician, heal yourself. What we have heard that you did at Capernaum, the city down the road, we'd like to see you do it here in your hometown as well. So you see the point, right? He's identifying in them this particular kind of local pride. So they've heard about this Galilean ministry. They've heard about some miracles that he did, maybe in Cana at the wedding, maybe at Capernaum and healing some people. They've heard about these things that he's done.

45:09 And now they want to see him do those same miracles here in your own hometown, Jesus. I mean, why did those people down the road get the goods? You need to do it here with your people. And you can even see in the way they say it, there's unbelief. 23, right? What we have heard that you did at Capernaum. It's not what you did. it's what we have heard you did. You're going to need to prove it for us. We're not going to accept the testimony of those Capernaumites.

45:42 You're going to have to do it here in Nazareth. You need to give us a little something-something too. You see the point? You see what's going on here? Jesus is declaring himself to be the Messiah. He's doing it right there in their presence. Like the greatest moment in the history of Israel is happening right there in their presence, But they miss it entirely because their pride is folding over into itself in a thousand different iterations. There's local pride. There's personal pride. There's pride about their city.

46:13 There's pride about their hometown. Boy, it's just folding and morphing into a thousand different iterations. They're condescending. They're demanding. They're protecting their own local prerogatives. And what they should have been doing is seeing Jesus for who he was. marveling at the fact that the Messiah was inviting them into his kingdom and salvation. But they miss it because it's more important for them to put him in his place. What do you think is the most likely kind of pride to keep you from seeing the gospel of Jesus Christ clearly?

46:54 Is it some kind of intellectual pride? I'm smarter than this. Is it maybe a scientific pride? I'm a naturalist. I don't believe in any of this supernatural stuff. Is it personal pride? I'm not about my need of anybody. I keep talking about this king. I'm not submitting to a king. Is it moral pride? I got this covered. If there comes a day when I stand before God, I'll show him what moral looks like.

47:27 At least I'm better than all those other people. What kind of pride keeps you from seeing the gospel and embracing Jesus? Friend, whatever it is, you need to repent of it. You need to turn away from it. Because it is spiritually killing you. Just like it was killing these people. Well, in the last few verses, 24 to 30, Jesus sees this pride and he gives these people a warning. He reminds them basically of two Old Testament stories, one from the time of Elijah the prophet and then one a little bit later from the time of Elisha the prophet. They're two different guys, similar names, different guys. If you look down at verse 30, you can see that the people got the point. Like they understood the warning. They got it really, really deeply. In fact, they got it so hard that they want to throw him off a cliff. So even if these two stories seem a little bit obscure to us, we're like, how does that exactly fit and what's going on with that? These Jewish people got it and it made them angry. So what did he say? What did he say in these two stories

48:32 of the widow of Zarephath in the time of Elijah and Naaman the Syrian in the time of Elisha? What did he say that ticked them off so badly? Well, these stories have a couple of things in common and that's what ticks them off. So for one thing, both of these people, the widow of Zarephath who is saved by Elijah and then Naaman who is healed by God, right, of his leprosy, both of these people were Gentiles. They were non-Jews. So the widow was from a place called Sidon. If you've ever studied the Old Testament, you'll know the famous place, cities, famous cities, Tyre and Sidon. Evil, evil places throughout the Old Testament. She was from one of those.

49:12 She was from the region of the city of the evil city of Sidon. Naaman was from the country of Syria. So by pointing out these two Gentiles who got salvation when the rest of Israel did not, right? There were many lepers in Israel. There were many widows in Israel. God healed none of them. God saved none of them except these that were Gentiles, non-Jews. What he's doing is warning these people about the consequences of rejecting God's Word. He's warning them of the consequences of rejecting God's Word. That's what the Israelites were doing in the time of these prophets. And it's what these people in Nazareth were doing too. So Jesus is saying, you guys better be careful to realize that if you persist in rejecting the Word of God, don't be surprised if the Word of God goes elsewhere.

50:02 You remember what I said earlier, right? About the kid that makes it rich, that was your classmate, and you're shocked. What's it going to be like for you? What is it going to be like for you? At the last day, when you look across and you see that guy that I sat behind in church for all those years being welcomed into the kingdom and I'm being shut out. Persist in your rejection of the word of God.

50:34 Come here week after week after week and hear the gospel again and again and again and reject it again and again and again. And that might very well happen. The word of God will go elsewhere. That's one thing he was telling them. But I think there's something deeper in it too. And that becomes clear only once you kind of think about the details of these two stories. So let me give you some of the details. So when Elijah met this widow of Zarephath in the region of Sidon, basically what was going on is there was a famine in the land and she and her son were starving and they were down to their last little bit of flour and oil.

51:07 And in fact, when she meets him, you know, he engages her in conversation, says, what are you going to do? And she says, well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to take this little bit of flour that I have and this little bit of oil. And I'm going to bake it into one last loaf. And my son and I are going to eat it. And then we're going to lay down and die. Because it's all we've got left. There's no food. And Elijah says, ah, okay, how about you don't do that? How about you take your little bit of flour and your little bit of oil. And you bake it into your one last loaf. And you bring it to me, the prophet, and I'll eat it. And she looks at him and she goes, okay then. And she does.

51:38 and then a miracle happens where she doesn't run out of flour and oil for the whole duration of the famine. Now what's the story there? The story was that she believed God because she was helpless. She was down to the end of a rope. I have one loaf of bread left. I'm not going to survive very long on this. And here's this prophet of God telling me to give it to him. Okay, what do I have to lose? Here, I'm helpless anyway. So I'm throwing myself in trust on whatever's about to happen here. I wonder, I've thought about it, I wonder, what if she had had a whole sack of flour and a whole barrel of oil?

52:13 What if she wasn't quite as desperate as she was? I wonder, I wonder if she would have trusted him. It was her helplessness that led her to trust Elijah and therefore trust God. No pride. No hoarding of what she had. Just trust. The same thing is true of Naaman, this powerful Syrian general. At first, when he arrives in Israel, he's got leprosy and he wants to be healed of it. And he hears about this man of God, Elisha. And so he goes to Israel. And what Elisha tells him to do through a messenger, he doesn't even go see him.

52:46 But he tells him, I want you to go down to the Jordan River and wash seven times and you'll be healed of your leprosy. And Naaman is like, you've got to be kidding me. I came all the way across the world for you to tell me to take a bath in a river? And he even says, when I came here, I expected for something big to happen. I expected this man of God to wave his hand over my sores and to watch them heal in real time, right? I expected something big. But just go take a bath in a river that's beneath me. So his servants start to talk to him.

53:17 They say, Naaman, what are you doing, man? I mean, if this man of God had given you some great work to do, you'd have done it. If he had said, go to the tallest mountain in Syria and there you'll find, you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever. you'd have been off on that quest man because that's a big thing worthy of you the general but you're not going to do it just because he told you something simple what are you thinking go bathe in the river and be healed and so he does and he's healed he finally comes to the end of himself he realizes I got nothing to lose like this isn't beneath me this is what God is telling me to do and so he goes and does it It's an odd thing, but the simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ often trips people up.

54:03 Wait, that's it? That's all I got to do? I just got to believe in Jesus? You got to be kidding. There's got to be some fine print somewhere that says I have to myself atone for all of my sins. I have to make myself better in order to be worthy of the kingdom of God. Surely that's got to be in there. And we Christians say again and again, no. No. All you got to do is trust in Jesus. to save you from your sins, and you'll be saved. Everyone, Paul wrote, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

54:38 Coming to Jesus Christ requires putting your pride to rest. And that's what Naaman does, and he's healed. You see what Jesus is doing with those two stories? Both of those stories are telling these Nazarenes the same thing. He's telling them pride slams the door on grace. Pride, in whatever form it comes, slams the door on grace.

55:08 You cannot receive mercy if your heart thinks you deserve it. You know, this last week, it's been said, was hard on Generation X. We lost in one week Hulk Hogan and Theo Huxtable from The Cosby Show and also Ozzy Osbourne. I saw a cartoon on Twitter or something the other day about Ozzy Osbourne.

55:41 I guess there's been some talk. I don't really know. I was not an Ozzy fan. But I think there's been some talk that maybe near the end of his life he became a Christian. I have absolutely no opinion on that. I don't know what kind of Christian or what his profession was or what his life was like. I have no idea. But I know there's been some talk that maybe Ozzy Osbourne became a Christian at the end of his life. And somebody made a cartoon of Ozzy standing in heaven. Like the gates are behind him and clouds and angels. And there's some other people that made it. I think they put Hulk Hogan in there too. Anyways, and Jesus has his arm around Ozzy Osbourne. And Ozzy is standing there with his arm straight down beside him.

56:13 His eyes are wide open. And he's got a t-shirt on that says, what the heck am I doing here? And I looked at that and I was like, well, you know, that's interesting. That's funny. But then I thought, you know, whatever the truth that lies underneath the cartoon, that's exactly the right heart you need to have as a Christian. Not a list of all the reasons that it's right for you to be there in heaven with the Lord, but just a simple, what the heck am I doing here?

56:46 I don't deserve to be here. There's nothing about me that deserves to be here. If I'm here, it's just because of mercy. And in just a second, we're going to take the Lord's Supper here. That little bit of cracker and juice is going to go out to the congregation and you're going to take it and you're going to put it in your mouth. And it's going to be this sort of statement to the world that I am a Christian. I am in fellowship with the God of the universe. I'm in this everlasting covenant with Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords. And you know what I hope is going through your mind as you make that statement to the world by eating and drinking?

57:21 I hope the statement running through your mind is, what the heck am I doing here? Because, friend, if you come to this table and you can list off the five reasons why you had a really good week and this is a great time to take the Lord's Supper, then you're not in the right frame of mind to be there at all. No, it's the one of you out there who's thinking, you know what? I am so aware of my sin this morning that I think I might pass it up. I think I might pass up the Lord's Supper today because I am so aware of my sin.

57:59 That's exactly the moment you should not pass it up. Because this table is for people who know they're sinners. Not for people who think they have it all together and are worthy to be there. See, that was Jesus' invitation. Do you know yourself to be as helpless as Naaman, as hopeless as that widow of Zarephath? And if so, Jesus said, my arms are wide open to give you mercy and compassion and salvation.

58:36 Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Let's pray. Our Lord, we thank you that you are a good and gracious God who loves us and who cares for us and who gave yourself for us so that we might not have to endure the wrath of God, but we could stand in his presence forever knowing that you endured it for us.

59:08 Oh, Father, we pray that as individuals, as a church, as Christians, Lord, we pray that you would drain pride out of our hearts. And even as we come to this table for the Lord's Supper today, Lord, remind us that Not one of us deserves to be there. Not one of us deserves to be in fellowship with you. But we are here. We are in fellowship with you in everlasting covenant. Gathered around this table of fellowship. Only because of your merciful and gracious invitation. And God, we pray that if there's anyone here with us today. Who doesn't yet know you as Lord and Savior.

59:38 We pray, oh God, that you would do the work of salvation in their hearts. Let them hear the invitation from your mouth loud and clear this morning. And cause their hearts to respond. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen.