Stand Alone - Ryan Graetz

Its relieving that Ps Nick asked me to preach again. Its an absolute privilege. Although it is a year since the last time I preached, so I guess that tells you how much of me he can cope with.

Our text today is Luke 4:14-21.

We’ll be looking at a fair few passages today, so don’t feel like you need to turn to each one in your Bible. I’ll put each passage up on the screen so you can see it.

Our text today is in Luke 4, but let’s just start a little earlier in Luke 3:21-22.

Luke 3:21–22 ESV

21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

This is Jesus’ anointing. Let’s skip down to 4:14.

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.”

The Spirit has come upon Jesus at his baptism powerfully and publicly, and he has been endowed with power. This has happened for a particular purpose. Jesus has a mission to do, and he is laser-focussed on completing it.

There is an interesting quirk with this passage:

Mathew and Mark place this story in the middle of Jesus’ ministry. In fact that’s probably when it happened chronologically. Jesus didn’t start his ministry in Nazareth. He has already been preaching and working miracles elsewhere.

But Luke places this story out of its chronological order, right at the start of Jesus’ ministry. Luke is a very careful writer, and pretty much everything he does is deliberate and purposeful. Nearly all commentators agree – Luke privileges this story.

Luke wants the reader to interpret everything Jesus does through the lens of this story. It is the programmatic cornerstone of his ministry. You can’t understand Jesus’ purpose, his mission, his miracles, and his teaching without understanding what Jesus is saying in this synagogue.

So we’re going to look at this carefully and understand Jesus’ anointing, understand his mission, and understand what that means for us.

The Spirit has Anointed Me…

In our text Jesus is quoting the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, mainly Isaiah 61. This is a prophecy written hundreds of years before Jesus came along.

Isaiah 61

There are some interesting aspects about this prophecy:

The chapter immediately beforehand, Isaiah 60, speaks of Israel’s restoration and the eschatological future of God’s people. In fact, Revelation 21 borrows heavily from it. Just look at Isaiah 60:19-21:

Isaiah 60:19–21 ESV

19 The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. 20 Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. 21 Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified.

So Isaiah 60 shows WHAT God intends for the future of his people - paradise and fellowship with him.

Then you come to the first few verses of Isaiah 61 - this is the part that Jesus quotes, and it shows that there is a person, a WHO, behind the WHAT. There is an anointed one who brings about this future for God’s people.

Luke 4:18–19 ESV

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.”

These verses show that there is a WHO, an “anointed one” who will bring about the restoration of God’s people.

Both the Hebrew AND Greek words for Messiah are both literally “anointed one”.

Then, in Luke 4, Jesus explicitly says that he is the one who fulfils this passage. He is the one the Spirit has anointed to usher in paradise, the eschatological hope of God’s people, and restored fellowship with God.

So what kind of anointing are we talking about here? In the Old Testament, there were three primary types of anointing.

Priestly Anointing

The first one we see is the anointing of the priests who would minister in God’s Tabernacle:

Exodus 30:25–30 ESV

25 And you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; it shall be a holy anointing oil. 26 With it you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony, 27 and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, 28 and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the basin and its stand. 29 You shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them will become holy. 30 You shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests.

This anointing oil used on the priests was holy, and it couldn’t be used for anyone or anything else.

The priests were consecrated to minister on behalf of God’s people; they would explain and teach God’s law to the people, and make sacrifices on behalf of the people to God.

They were mediators, and there could be no more fulfilling role than to reconcile, than to make peace between, a holy God and his precious people.

And what physical anointing oil could be as holy and as precious as the Spirit that anointed Jesus? The book of Hebrews shows us that Jesus’ anointing was priestly as well.

Hebrews 5:9–10 ESV

9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, 10 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Jesus has been anointed as our high priest, our mediator. He is the one that saves us from the anger of God to come. He implores God on our behalf and reassures God’s people on his father’s behalf.

Prophetic Anointing

The second type of anointing we see in Scripture is the anointing of prophets. In 1 Kings 19:6, God commands Elijah to “anoint” Elisha as a prophet in his place.

1 Kings 19:15–16 ESV

15 And the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. 16 And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place.

So, we see that Elisha was to be “anointed” as a prophet. What was the role of a prophet?

It is easy to think that a prophet is someone who can do miracles and tell us the future, or at least find out things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to know.

In Scripture, though, this isn’t the biggest part of a prophet’s role. When you look at prophets like Samuel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Elijah, the biggest part of their role was to act as God’s spokesperson.

Prophets represented God before his people. They were responsible for explaining what God is like, reminding the people what God expected of them, and warning them when they fell short of his standard - judgement would follow if they didn’t follow God’s covenantal laws.

And Jesus does the same, does he not? Read through his teaching, and you will see that he is the greatest prophet that ever lived.

Doesn’t the Sermon on the Mount remind us of God’s standard, his holy law that must be obeyed?

And in the Olivet discourse Jesus warns Israel that judgement is coming - not one stone of the temple will be left on another, and Jerusalem will be destroyed - why? Because Israel is rejecting God’s messiah, Jesus himself.

And Jesus’ death on the cross shows us the love and humility of God.

Royal Anointing

The third way the Spirit anointed Jesus is with a royal, or kingly anointing. This is the anointing I want to focus on today.

Israelite kings were often referred to as “God’s anointed”. Long before Jesus was born to Mary, the prophet Samuel anointed the boy David as king over Israel.

During David’s reign he wanted to build a house for God, a temple. Let’s see what happened - let’s read 2 Samuel 7:1-2

2 Samuel 7:1–2 ESV

1 Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, 2 the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.”

Nathan then comes back and delivers God’s message to David. We won’t read all of it - let’s skip to halfway through verse 11:

2 Samuel 7:11–13 ESV

11 from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. 12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Instead of David building a house for Yahweh, Yahweh promised to build a “house” for David. This “house” was a royal dynasty. An eternal dynasty.

He promised that David would always have his descendants reigning on the throne of Israel.

The promise was fulfilled for a while - David’s descendants reigned after his death, starting with Solomon.

His line continued through the kings of Judah after him. They reigned all the way up to Judah’s exile to Babylon in 587 BC.

When the Jews returned from Babylon to their homeland decades later, Zerubbabel became their governor, and he came from David’s line.

But we don’t hear much about an real Davidic king after that.

However, after Judah returned to their homeland, for centuries after, there was an undercurrent of hope that one day, God’s “anointed one”, his Messiah, a descendant of David, would save Israel from her enemies. He would come and make everything right again.

Then along comes Jesus.

If you look at the start of Matthew’s gospel and Luke’s gospel, they trace Jesus’ ancestry back through David, showing that Jesus is a descendant of David.

Did other people see Jesus as the anointed messianic king? Let’s look in Mark 11:7-10:

Mark 11:7–10 ESV

7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. 8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. 9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

Here Jesus enters Jerusalem as the Davidic king!

He makes no apology for it, and his disciples are happy to proclaim it - even in a city occupied by Rome, where disloyalty to Caesar was a heinous crime.

…To Preach the Good News to the Poor...

So Jesus has been anointed as priest, prophet, and king. What has he been anointed to do? What is his mission, his reason for being on this earth?

Let’s read Luke 4:18-19 again:

Luke 4:18–19 ESV

He has come to preach the good news to the poor.

Before Jesus deals with Israel’s physical enemies, he comes to reconcile the hearts of his people to himself.

Luke 4:18-19 is structured in quite a specific way: The mission is summarised in the first sentence, and the second sentence expands on it. The summary is that Jesus has come to proclaim good news to the poor. That is his mission. It is the main purpose of his anointing by the Spirit.

What does that look like? Let’s talk about what Luke means by “poor”, and what he means by “good news”.

The Poor

Who are the poor that need the gospel preached to them? Luke 4:18-19 gives us a clue - it is those that are captive, those that are blind, those who are oppressed.

Does Jesus mean people in literal poverty? Or is he speaking metaphorically?

Did he mean actual prisoners? Did he mean physically blind people? Is that who the good news is for?

We said before that Luke wants us to interpret everything else that happened in Jesus’ ministry through the lens of our text in Luke 4.

So let’s look at who Jesus spent time with during his ministry, and especially who he preached the gospel to, and that will help us understand it better.

Physically Poor and Oppressed

A scholar named Joel Green has constructed lists of words that the gospel of Luke commonly groups with the word “poor”. They are: “captive”, “blind,” “oppressed,” “hungry,” and “lame.”

These people are all physically disadvantaged in some way, and Jesus has compassion on them. We know Jesus spent much of his ministry literally healing every ailment you could think of.

Luke 6:17–23 ESV

17 And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all. 20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. 22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

This passage seems very compelling - Jesus is definitely including real, physical hardship and poverty in his definition of “poor”.

In fact, the gospel of Luke emphasises material poverty more than any other gospel writer. He really does mean the physically disadvantaged. Jesus focussed on those people more than anyone else.

Anawim

There’s another aspect to poverty in Luke’s Gospel.

It is not just about those who are poor or oppressed or physically disadvantaged in some way.

Jesus does say “blessed are the poor” but he also says that those who are hated on account of the Son of Man are blessed!

Jesus isn’t just talking about those who are poor in material ways, those we know he does have compassion for them.

He is also talking about the poor that put their faith in him. The orientation of someone’s heart, whether poor or rich, is what matters most.

Many Jews throughout the Old Testament saw themselves as the “pious poor”, which in Hebrew is “anawim”.

The anawim are the faithful remnant of Israel.

They are devoted, believers in Yahweh who follow him no matter what.

They are often oppressed and in poverty because of their faithfulness to God - they will not embrace corruption and refuse to go along with the crowd.

They will not take bribes, even if everyone else is doing it. They will not bow down to idols, even when its compulsory. They will not judge unjustly, even if powerful people expect them to.

They stand up for the rights of the defenseless and the vulnerable, even when it means crossing someone powerful.

As you’d expect, they suffer for being conscientious, they suffer for doing what’s right. Think of people like Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego, or even John the Baptist.

They hold out hope that one day Yahweh will rescue them from rich and powerful oppressors. You see it in passages like Ps 35:10:

Psalm 35:10 ESV

10 All my bones shall say, “O Lord, who is like you, delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him, the poor and needy from him who robs him?”

Isaiah 61:1-2, the passage Jesus quotes in our text, uses the same term anawim. It is very likely that Jesus is thinking of the anawim as well.

Spiritually Poor

But there is a third category of “poor” that we need to consider. Let’s look at Luke 5:30-32.

Luke 5:30–32 ESV

30 And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

We see here that the religious elite have a problem with Jesus because he hangs out with sinful people.

We’re not just talking about people who tell white lies.

Tax collectors were the kind of people who work for the Roman occupation. They took money from their own oppressed countrymen on behalf of Rome.

And this provided them with an opportunity - while they were protected by Roman soldiers, they used the opportunity to greedily take more than their share.

Some of them ended up becoming quite rich because of it, and they were hated by their own countrymen. Zacchaeus is a good example of this. In fact, the story of Zacchaeus appears only in the Gospel of Luke!

The Gospel of Luke is also where we have stories like the prodigal son, the lost coin, and the lost sheep, where Jesus emphasises his mission to save lost sinners. He told those stories to the Pharisees when they were angry at him for hanging out with sinners.

Jesus spent time with liars, prostitutes, murderers, thieves, those possessed by demons, and even enemies of his own people, such as Roman centurions and Samaritans.

Jesus knew that the greatest captives were sinners. The most blind are those who are spiritually blind, and the poorest people are those in spiritual debt to God.

The Gospel

So Jesus was anointed to preach the good news to the poor, and now we know that means:

The financially poor, outcasts from society, oppressed, and physically disabled.

It also includes the anawim, those who faithfully serve and fear Yahweh despite great cost, and have their hope in him.

And it means the spiritually poor, sinners that are in spiritual debt to God.

But what does it mean that Jesus was anointed to preach the good news to those people? What is the “gospel” Jesus preached?

The King Inaugurates His Kingdom

Fortunately, Luke does explain to us the main focus of what Jesus preached. Let’s look at two verses in Luke:

Luke 4:43 ESV

43 but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.”

Luke 16:16 ESV

16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it.

Notice the common denominator? It is the good news of the Kingdom of God! What is so good about that?

Jesus is the king all Israel has been waiting on for centuries. No, even more than that - he is the king the whole world has been waiting for since humanity fell into sin and corruption, right when Adam and Eve sinned in Genesis!

He is the king who will restore humanity to order and peace and harmony with God!

Jesus is the king who will achieve final victory over all evil and over death and over Satan himself, that snake who deceived humanity into war with God.

This king was sitting right there, in a synagogue in Nazereth, proclaiming that his kingdom is now here.

Don’t get me wrong, Jesus has always been king - but now he has brought his kingdom here to earth!

Jubilee

But why is this good news for the poor? Why does Jesus focus on them?

Remember the term “poor” is used as a catch-all to mean physical poverty, oppression, disability, captivity to sin, and so on.

Let’s look at our text again:

Luke 4:18–19 ESV

Jesus says he will liberate the oppressed and proclaim “the year of the Lord’s favour.” What does that mean?

Jesus is referring back to Leviticus 25, which was part of the Law God gave to Israel in the Old Testament.

Leviticus 25:10 ESV

10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan.

You can read all of Leviticus 25 during the week if you like, it goes into a fair bit of detail. But to summarise:

Under God’s law, Israelites were not allowed to permanently sell their ancestral property, the family’s land. They were not allowed to take fellow Israelites as servants on a permanent basis.

Every 50 years there was a great reset, when any land that had been sold would be redistributed back to each family group, and all Israelites who had sold themselves into indentured servanthood were to be set free.

This is the year of liberty, the year of Jubilee.

The Jubilee meant that if your family fell on hard times, if you had to sell the plot of land you had inherited from your parents which they had inherited from their parents which they had inherited from their ancestors from way back - you could hold out hope for the Jubilee year, every 50th year, when you would get your land back for free.

If times got so bad that your family had to live a life of indentured servanthood and work for someone else rather than your own estate - you could rely on the Jubilee year and you could go free. Just like that.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any evidence that the Israelites or the Jews ever actually practiced the Jubilee.

But to the Israelites that theme, the theme of Jubilee and liberation, started to become an eschatological hope.

It became this bigger picture expectation, that God’s people would be released from their bondage and live in freedom from occupation by evil foreign powers, freedom from sin, freedom from danger and violence, and in harmony with God.

Jesus draws on this Jubilee theme here in Luke 4. Remember Luke emphasises our text as a key to understanding Jesus’ ministry. And what do we see happen in chapter 7?

Luke 7:20–23 ESV

20 And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’ ” 21 In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. 22 And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. 23 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Jesus is liberating people left right and centre. Remember Jesus said “TODAY this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”. God’s kingdom had come right then, and people were immediately experiencing its benefits. They are being set free from all kinds of physical ailments, demon possession, and even death. Their Jubilee, their liberty, has come. God’s kingdom is here!

And most importantly, their sins are being forgiven. They are being set free from the debts they owe to God and from their slavery to sin and Satan. There is freedom in Jesus.

This is why the good news matters to the poor

Now Jesus came to begin his kingdom. He hasn’t completed it yet. That’s why we still struggle today. That’s why there is still poverty, why there is still brokenness and oppression. In the New Testament there is this dynamic of “already, but not yet”. God’s kingdom is here, and he is building it through his church. But its also not fully here yet - when he comes back, he will make all things right.

But when Jesus was ministering, people were being set free left right and centre - the good news was being preached to the poor! We can all identify with the poor to some extent.

Nearly all of us have suffered physical ailments, but when Jesus returns and completes his kingdom, we won’t have to worry about that anymore.

Some of us, though not many since we are in a relatively rich country, but some of us have experienced financial hardship. Jesus promises that when he returns, that won’t be a problem for you anymore, if you believe in him.

Many of us have faced social exclusion for believing the Gospel. We won’t join our friends, peers, colleagues, or family in their wicked behaviours, and we are looked down on for it. When Jesus completes his kingdom, that won’t be an issue anymore.

But we have the start of these blessings. This church is a taste of God’s kingdom. We are generous with each other. We take care of each other when we are sick. We welcome each other into friendship and fellowship, even though we can be excluded elsewhere. What sweet fellowship, what unity, what brotherly love we can share because we’re all a part of his kingdom together.

And we all, we ALL, had a huge, insurmountable, horrific debt of sin to God. We were spiritually poor. We were liars, thieves, murderers, adulterers. Even if we didn’t do all those things with our bodies, Jesus is very clear that what happens in our hearts matters just as much to him:

Mark 7:20–23 ESV

20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Sin originates in our hearts, not our hands. We were all spiritual beggars. But Jesus has come down to earth to begin his kingdom here, and that means freedom from our spiritual debts - if we believe in him and submit to his rule over us.

…in his name to all nations

So now we know that Jesus has been anointed as prophet, priest, and king on earth by the Holy Spirit. We know that he came to preach the good news to the poor, the downtrodden, the disabled, outcasts, and sinners.

And he came to preach the good news that he has inaugurated the kingdom of God on earth.

So what now? Are we to just sit and wait for him to come back? Let’s read a few more verses from Luke’s gospel.

Luke 9:1–2 ESV

1 And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.

First, he sends his closest 12 disciples to do the same things he did.

Luke 10:1 ESV

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go.

Luke 10:9 ESV

9 Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’

Then, he sends another 72 disciples to do the same thing.

Luke 24:45–49 ESV

45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Jesus gives his mission for all servants of his kingdom.

We are his servants in the kingdom of God, his church. We are the ones he has given this mission to.

Notice two things he asks his disciples to do whenever he sends them: preach the kingdom of God and heal. In that last passage he doesn’t mention healing explicitly, but his disciples are given power from on high, and we know from the book of Acts they used it to heal, do good works, and of course, preach the gospel!

“Heal”

So let’s talk about healing.

Are we supposed to go around supernaturally healing people?

That’s a little beside the point. Whether we have direct supernatural power to heal sickness and cast out demons is not the focus.

The point is that we are servants of Jesus, the king, and his kingdom is his church.

So our focus should be doing the kinds of things he did, whether we have direct supernatural power to make it easier or not.

So what kinds of things did Jesus do?

Notice that Jesus associated with Pharisees AND sinners AND tax collectors AND prostitutes AND rulers - he was, dare I say it - inclusive!

He spent bulk time with the powerful AND the despised.

He even touched people who had contagious skin diseases!

So, as his church, we should not assume that associating with people means we agree with what they do.

Jesus didn’t see it like that, and nor should we.

We should be able to associate with anyone! Political leaders, thieves, gamblers, pastors, LGBTQIA people, and even engineers.

Everyone is valuable in God’s sight, everyone is one of those lost sinners that Jesus came to reach, and no-one is beyond the reach of his kingdom.

But Jesus demonstrated special interest in the sick, the vulnerable, the oppressed, the poor.

He used his power to heal them and he used his time to teach them. And so should we.

Like I said before, these people are probably more likely to be humble and open-hearted to the gospel than the rich and powerful who are already happy - they don’t think they need God!

How do you tell whether you really love Jesus?

One way is to look at the people you help - do you only help people who can repay you, or who can benefit you in some way?

No-one could benefit Jesus. He owns all creation, he needs nothing from us, and he came here to die.

He spent his time loving people who couldn’t benefit him in any way.

And if we love Jesus, if we are his followers, if we are his kingdom - we will do the same.

We are obliged to use all in our power - our finances, education, our time, and our skills - to benefit the less fortunate.

When the church does this, we show that the Kingdom of God has come on earth, because we look like our anointed King, Jesus.

Preach the Gospel

Jesus has also called us to preach the good news, and this is our highest priority.

Now some of you will be thinking, “why is preaching more important than feeding the hungry, visiting the lonely, and caring for the sick? People in hard situations don’t want to be preached at, they just need our help!”

We need to think carefully about this.

How was sickness introduced to the world? How does poverty come about? how does oppression happen?

From the Bible’s perspective, and from my own experience, it all boils down to one thing - humans chose to be enemies with God.\

Romans 3:9–12 ESV

9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

From the time Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, sin has dominated human hearts. It is our greatest enemy.

All causes of poverty and hardship come down to sin. One of the biggest causes of poverty in the world is war and corruption!

And where there is poverty there is lack of medical care. That, in turn, means sickness and suffering run rampant.

But the gospel, the good news, is this:

If we repent of sin, believe in Jesus, and live as his subjects, acknowledging him as our anointed king, we can be at peace with God again.

Jesus has come to fix all those things, and one day he will finish the job.

So if you really want to help someone, you won’t ignore their physical needs, but you will prioritise their most important need - their hostility to God and their need to be reconciled with him.

If you take care of someone’s physical needs, showING them love and compassion, but fail to preach the gospel to them - that’s like treating a cancer patient with morphine. That’s like putting a bandaid on a snakebite.

You may help them feel better for a little while, but all your work will come to nothing. They will still wind up in hell because they are still an enemy of God.

Jesus spent a lot of time and effort healing people’s diseases, freeing them from demons, and feeding them when hungry - but he always told people the truth.

His good works always culminated in preaching the gospel to people. Having said that, people will often be far more ready to listen if we have taken care of their physical needs first.

When people believe this truth and submit to Jesus’ kingship; when they bow the knee before him, he restores so many aspects of their lives.

An example of this is John Newton:

A man who lived in England in the 1700’s.

He was raised being taught about Jesus, but he didn’t really believe in him.

He was pressed into joining the Navy, and later chose to move into slave trading, because it was an “easy and creditable way of life”.

He would cram more then 200 slaves in a single ship in filthy, cramped conditions. Many would die on the journey.

He became a Christian, stopped the slave trade, and became an Anglican minister.

He realised the horror of what he had done, and wrote the hymn Amazing Grace.

I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind but now I see.

He started campaigning heavily against the slave trade with William Wilberforce, which eventually succeeded in eradicating slavery from England.

When people believe the good news of Jesus, they become able to share his love to others.

Instead of continuing the cycle of oppression and poverty, they learn to work hard and care for the vulnerable.

For two thousand years Jesus has been restoring people through his church day after day, and he will continue doing so until he returns.

Conclusion

Let’s finish up here.

Jesus has been anointed by the Holy Spirit as

our prophet, who teaches us about God;

our priest, who intercedes for us before God;

and our king - the one who will rule in wisdom, goodness, and love and set humanity right again.

He has come to preach good news to the poor.

Who are the poor?

The oppressed, those in financial hardship, social outcasts, the disabled, and especially those in spiritual debt to God - sinners. And we all fit into that last category.

What is the good news for us?

Jesus has come to inaugurate his kingdom on earth!

He has come to bring in God’s Jubilee, his freedom.

he will free the poor from poverty

release those oppressed to Satan

heal the disabled, and

forgive all our debts to God.

We have the hope of living in peace, harmony, and friendship with God. All sorrow, sickness, and suffering will be a thing of the past.

Jesus has started this process through his ministry on earth, and he continues it through us, the servants of the kingdom - his church.

He will come back to complete the work and wipe away every tear from our eyes.

He will also come back to judge his enemies, those who refuse to repent of sin and live under his kingship.

He has anointed us with his spirit to carry on his work until he returns.

This means associating with all people, whether powerful or helpless, friendly or mean, sinful or holy.

But it especially means taking care of the vulnerable, poor, oppressed, and needy.

But most of all, it means preaching the Gospel to sinners.

It means getting right at the heart of the problem - our hostility and disobedience to God.

We need to tell people the truth in love:

If they don’t follow Jesus, they should not look forward to him coming back, because it will be a horrible time for them.

They will be lost in their sin and in God’s judgement in hell forever.

But Jesus, the anointed king, has made a way for us to be reconciled to God. He did that by suffering and dying on the cross for us.

We need to give up on the idea that our own good deeds can save us. All we need to do is believe in him and trust in his goodness.