The Year of God's Favor
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Our Scripture lesson today comes from Luke 4:16-30:
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. 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 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 have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’ ” And 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 none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away.
May God bless this the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
In our text today, Jesus begins His ministry by reading a liturgical reading from the prophet Isaiah. The primary text in this reading is Isaiah 61:1-2. Having finished His reading, Jesus sat down and then preached a one sentence sermon: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”! In this one sentence, Jesus speaks volumes! He was claiming to be the fulfillment of all the Jewish people’s hopes and dreams! There was one problem however—he makes it clear that He is not the type of Messiah they were looking and hoping for—He had not come to bring God’s vengeance to the Gentiles, but rather salvation.
The first thing that tipped the Nazarenes off that Jesus was not the type of Messiah they were looking for was the fact that He had not finished His assigned reading, for Isaiah 61 continues, “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, AND the day of vengeance of our God”. The second thing was the discussion that followed. In first-century Judaism it was customary to have a discussion after the sermon. At first it appeared that Jesus and His message were well received, but as the discussion continued there was more and more dissent—who did this hometown boy think he was! Then Jesus drops His bomb shell, rather than bringing God’s wrath to the Gentiles, Jesus had come to bring God’s grace! He points them to the Gentile widow who Elijah fed and the Syrian general who Elisha healed. These final words had hardly left Jesus’ mouth, and the townspeople were “filled with wrath” and drove him out of town to throw Him off a cliff!
What was going on here?
Just like people today, the Jews of Jesus time were sick and tired of injustice, oppression and tyranny. Have you ever heard someone say after they have witnessed a great evil, “There needs to be a law against that.” or “We need better leaders.” The Nazarenes knew just the man to set things right—the Messiah!
Earlier in chapter four, Jesus had rejected Satan’s offer to become the political ruler of the whole world. Not only was Jesus not willing to pay the price to the world’s political ruler by worshiping Satan, He also knew it would not work. You see all the evils of this world are not caused by external political and social systems, but the sinful human heart. Some read Isaiah’s call to bring good news to the poor, oppressed and blind as a call to social action. They call this the Social Gospel. Most certainly God commands us to care for the poor, oppressed and blind, but commands are by nature law. Paul teaches us in Romans 7-8 that the Law is rendered powerless by our sinful human hearts. He writes of his own experience:
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
We can all identify with Paul, can’t we? If the world is going to change for the better, we need something more than better leaders and better laws—we need better hearts! This is what Jesus came to do. He came to bring....
Good News to the Poor
Good News to the Poor
Across the globe, millions suffer under the cruel hand of material poverty, and God commands us to work so that we may have something to share with those in need; but there is another type of poverty that is the root of all the evil in this world, and it doesn’t just affect the materially poor, but the materially wealthy as well. Jesus speaks of this type of poverty in His letter to the church of Laodicea:
For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
The Laodicean materially had all they needed and more, but they were wretchedly poor!
What type of poverty is Jesus talking about?
He is talking about spiritual poverty. Perhaps the saddest words in all of Scripture are found in Ephesians 2:12, there Paul describes those who are not saved as being “without hope and God in the world”. There is not poverty greater than being without God. God is the fountain of all joy and delight. In John 17:3, Jesus tells us what constitutes real life:
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Only by being in a relationship with the Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit, can a person experience real life. Anything less than this is but a shadow of real life. Is it any wonder that earlier in Ephesians 2, Paul describes those without Christ being “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1) and "children of wrath” (Eph 2:3). This is an ugly picture, but spiritual poverty is ugly. The problem is, just like the Laodiceans, most people do not realize they are spiritually poor.
This is why it is so important that we preach Christ and Him crucified. Jesus, by His death on the cross, paid the penalty for our sin, making it possible for us to enjoy God’s forgiveness and restoring our relationship with Him. Paul puts it this way:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
The Gospel makes those who are spiritually poor, spiritually rich!
It also sets us free.
Good News to the Oppressed and Captive
Good News to the Oppressed and Captive
Sin does not simply impoverish us, it enslaves us! I spoke of this earlier in my introduction when I cited Romans 7-8, which teaches what sin enslaves our heart so that we are unable to obey God’s law. The root cause of all evil in this world are human hearts that have been enslaved to sin.
The reason is because all social and political revolutions are doomed to failure. Coercion will never change human hearts. Jesus knew this, and this why He rejected Satan’s offer for political power, this is why He told Peter to “put away your sword”, and this is why He did not call down “twelve legions of angels” to save Himself from the cross. It was only by going to the cross that He could set the human heart free from the grip of sin and usher in the Kingdom of God! The author of Hebrews writes:
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
The most subversive activity in the world is the proclamation of the Gospel, because it changes the world one heart at a time! Do you want to make the world a better place? Then do what Jesus did, share the Good News with others.
After the American Revolution, as frequently happens after a war, people forgot about God. Church attendance was at a record low, while alcoholism and other vices were at record highs. Then came the Second Great Awakening. Not everything that happened in the Second Great Awakening was good. For example, the revivalism promoted by Charles Finney is a heresy that has done great harm to the church. Thankfully, there were other men as well, men such as John Witherspoon and Samuel Smith, who were the two successive Presbyterian presidents of Princeton College at that time. They realized that only Christianity could keep our Republic virtuous and prosperous. Consequently, they, along with Timothy Dwight of Yale, did all they could to convert the young men under their care to Christianity. These young men graduated to become leaders in our nation, and by the middle of the nineth-century, America was the most Christianized nation in the world!
Do not think that the Holy Spirit cannot do the same today. If so, you are mistaken. The Kingdom of God grows not by our might, but by God’s. According to Jesus grows like a mustard seed—one heart at a time!
If we are faithful, like Jesus was faithful, something else will happen—the blind will see!
Good News to the Blind
Good News to the Blind
The consequences of sin are not just spiritual poverty and bondage, but blindness as well. Sin is a lie and the more a person sins the deeper they fall into the delusional darkness of sin.
In John’s Gospel, we read these words of Jesus:
I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
One of the reasons Jesus came is so we would not have to live in spiritual darkness. We have already seen in Luke’s Gospel how frequently he writes about Jesus and the Gospel being a light.
On another occasion in John’s Gospel, we read this:
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Again, we have the language of being “set free”, but this time it is in relation to the truth. The only way you can be a truly free person is by abiding in Christ’s Word. That “Word” is found in what we call the Bible.
We live in a world of lies. People do not know who or what to trust. The one thing you can always trust in is God’s Word—the Bible!
Someday, Jesus will come back, and that Day will be the Day of Vengeance. The last half of Isaiah 61:2 will be fulfilled, but on that Day Christ will on weld His sword in His hand, but from His month!
From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
Do you hear what God is saying to us in Revelation? When Christ finally establishes His Kingdom upon this earth in its fullness, He will establish it by the power of His Word, not by the way this worlds rulers establish their kingdoms. Just as He did at Nazareth, Jesus defies human expectations!
The application for us is clear, if you are spiritually poor, enslaved and blind, you must believe the Gospel. There is no other way of salvation. Then, for those who are Christians, you must labor to establish God’s Kingdom as Jesus did—by proclaiming the Good News!