Experiencing the Year of the Lord's Favor

Nick Muehlebach

Luke 4:14-30 • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

Luke 4:14–21

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Luke 4:14-21 ESV

14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. 15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.

16 And he 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. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

18 “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, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

20 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. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Today is the first Sunday in the month of February. And as I said at the beginning of our series last month, this entire year, we are going to be closely examining different narratives, events that took place in the Bible.

Odd numbered months we are looking at narratives from the Old Testament, thus we examined the Battle of Jericho in the book of Joshua last month.

And even numbered months we are looking at narratives from the New Testament. Therefore, this morning, we are going to start a series from a narrative in the New Testament.

And the specific narrative that we are going to examine and draw from this month is the narrative concerning Jesus’ proclamation of Who He is, and the response that He received to this proclamation in His hometown of Nazareth.

And today in particular, we are going to be looking at what exactly it was that Jesus proclaimed to those in His hometown and the events that led up to it.

Now, if you’re aware of the chronology of events in the Gospels, that is, the order in which the different events took place, then you’ll know that Jesus’ inauguration into His public ministry took place when He approached John the Baptist to receive baptism for Himself.

It is written that when the Lord Jesus received this baptism and He came up from the water, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him. Then a voice from Heaven spoke the words, “This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased.”

And that’s how the Lord Jesus’ public ministry was inaugurated. With this declaration, Jesus was officially commissioned to go about His work of redeeming His people… but what happened next may surprise you.

You would think that after receiving this commission from God the Father that Jesus would set out and start making a name for Himself right away. But that was not what God would have Him do. Instead, it is written that the Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness so that He may be tempted by the devil there.

Yes, you heard that right, Jesus was led by God the Holy Spirit into the wilderness so that He may be tempted by the devil.

Well, Jesus, being the God-Man, He was able to overcome and resist the temptations of the devil.

And after the Lord overcame and resisted the devil, there were several other acts that He performed in between the temptation and the narrative of our reading for today, which John tells us about in his Gospel.

And thus, we arrive at our reading.

And the first two verses of our reading tell us:

*Luke 4:14-15 ESV

14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. 15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.

First, we notice that Jesus returns to Galilee. Now, it says that He returns to Galilee because it was in the region of Galilee where Jesus grew up.

But it also says something interesting when it says that He returned in the power of the Spirit when He came back to Galilee.

Now, from birth, Jesus was the God-Man. Some false teachers try to say that Jesus was just a regular man until the Spirit of God came on Him at His baptism and that then He became the God-Man. But that’s not correct, in fact, that’s heretical.

Rather, as I said, Jesus was the God-Man from birth. But before Jesus received His baptism and was thus inaugurated to His earthly ministry, He lived a quiet, humble, ordinary life.

But once the Spirit of God came upon Him, He began His earthly ministry, and so, when our reading says that Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, it means that He left Galilee while living His quiet, humble, ordinary life, but now He returns after embarking on His public ministry.

And as I said, it doesn’t record it here in Luke, but in the Gospel of John, it records how in between the temptation of Jesus and His return to Galilee, several events have occurred. Some of these events were Jesus calling His first disciples, Him turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana, Him driving the buyers and sellers from the Temple in Jerusalem, and several others.

And as our reading says, because the Lord had done these things, a report about Him went out through all the surrounding country. In other words, this Jesus was doing some remarkable things, and people were talking about it.

All over the countryside of Galilee, the Lord was welcomed to teach in the synagogues, and when He did, He received much glory from those who heard Him.

And after the Lord had traveled all over Galilee, He finally came to His hometown:

*Luke 4:16a ESV

16a And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.

Now, some may be surprised when I speak of Nazareth as being the hometown of Jesus. After all, doesn’t the Christmas story speak of Jesus being born in Bethlehem? Indeed, Bethlehem was where Jesus was born, but as our reading says here, He was brought up in Nazareth.

Bethlehem was in the heart of Israel, not far from Jerusalem, the city of David, and that is where Jesus was born. But Jesus was brought up in Nazareth, a relatively isolated village in northern Israel with less than two hundred people living there during the time of Jesus.

So, living the majority of His life in this small town, surely everyone there already knew Jesus. So, when Jesus comes, already gaining immense popularity, one would think that He would receive a hometown hero’s welcome.

But, let’s go ahead and take a look at what Jesus done once He went to teach at the synagogue in Nazareth in the remainder of our reading:

*Luke 4:16b-21 ESV

16b And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

Our reading says that when the Lord arrived in Nazareth, He done what was according to His custom. And what we see earlier in our reading back in verse 15, is that the custom of Jesus was to teach in the synagogues that He came across. Therefore, on this Sabbath Day, the Lord came to the synagogue in Nazareth, His hometown, to teach.

And as the Lord prepares to teach the people, He is given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. They didn’t have Bibles in book form then like we do today, instead, they had scrolls for books and sections of the Bible in those scrolls.

So, choosing what He will teach on from the scroll of Isaiah, Jesus unrolls the scroll, and He turns to what we know today as Isaiah, chapter 61.

And after Jesus reads this passage, He hands the scroll back to the synagogue attendant and sits down. At this point, all eyes were fixed on Him in anticipation of what the Lord Jesus would say concerning this great passage.

And when He opened His mouth to speak, the teaching was simple: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

This was a simple, straightforward declaration. What Jesus essentially was saying is that this passage is about the Messiah and that He is the Messiah!

Jesus declares that everything that is predicted and prophesied in this passage from Isaiah, He is actively fulfilling.

The passage says that “the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me” and as we saw back in verse 14, it says that Jesus returns with the power of the Spirit.

And it says that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me “because He (the Spirit) has anointed Me.” Before God ever chose to save any of us, He chose Jesus as the Instrument of our salvation. It was the Father’s will for the Son to be crushed for God’s people. He had chosen Him and the in the fullness of time, He sent Him, and He visibly anointed Him after being baptized in the Jordan.

It says that He has been sent to proclaim good news to the poor, that is, those who are poor in spirit and recognize their need to depend on God’s grace alone.

To proclaim liberty to the captives, that is, those enslaved in sin and unable to escape without Him.

To heal their blindness, that is, to cause them to see their sinful nature and their need of salvation.

And set at liberty those who are oppressed, that is, give free and full pardon to those under the burden of sin and to give a new heart, capable of loving Him to those He saves.

We all know the original exodus of Israel as God led Israel out of Egypt, the land of slavery. But here we see Jesus providing an even better exodus, a spiritual exodus which takes men from sin and alienation from God to salvation and adoption as God’s sons.

And this is all done because this is the year of the Lord’s favor.

Once again, going back to the exodus narrative, while Israel wandered in the desert, God informed them that when they arrived in the promised land, they were to observe something called a jubilee.

In ancient Israel, they were to recognize the jubilee every 50 years. On the year of jubilee Hebrew slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies of God would be particularly manifested.

And Jesus tells them here that the time in which they and in which we here today are living is the spiritual year of jubilee.

Now, this of course does not refer to one specific, calendar year, but rather, it refers to the time from Jesus’ public ministry until the day in which He returns in judgment.

So, He tells His hometown friends, now is the time of salvation and I AM the salvation!

Now, as I said, today is the spiritual year of jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor. And like Jesus may we proclaim this favorable year to lost souls far and wide and may we all experience God’s bountiful spiritual harvest at the end of the age!