WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE GET TO KNOW JESUS?

Good morning—It’s so good to be here with you this morning to open up God’s Word. My name is Clay Wright, and for those of you who don’t know me, I am one of the pastors here at Open Door, I enjoy reading, board games, my family, and my small group, and I drive a white 2004 Toyota Corolla. And when you drive a 2004 Toyota Corolla, you learn that there are some things in life that you can afford to ignore. And among those things are the little lights that appear on the dashboard.

It’s like, as long as my car won’t literally explode as soon as I hit 55, we’re good! We’ve all had fun ignoring the warning lights. And yet, some of them can’t be ignored. Some of them are actually there to keep you safe! From being stranded on the side of the road with no oil! Which has definitely not happened to me, and is not the reason I keep 72 hours worth of food and supplies in my car at all times.

See, there are some things you have to address because they are vital to your livelihood and your health and your safety. And the same thing is true in life generally. If there’s a tree in the middle of the road, you can ignore it all you want, but you’ll have to face the reality of the tree eventually. You’ll get to know the tree pretty well, and pretty quickly if you try to ignore it. It’s true of dashboards. It’s true in life generally. And it’s true of our spiritual lives as well. There are some things we can afford to ignore, and there are some things—or someOne—we need to get to know. And can you believe this morning that there is nothing more vital, nothing more real, nothing more important than Getting to Know Jesus?

Getting to know Jesus is something we can’t afford to ignore. Thankfully for us, a man named Luke, led by the Holy Spirit, wrote an account of Jesus’ life so that we could get to know Him. So today we’re going to continue our study of the book of Luke with a new sermon series titled “Getting to Know Jesus.”

And actually, we’ve already been introduced pretty well to Jesus in our study of Luke’s Gospel. We’re in chapter four, and we’ve seen how His birth fulfilled prophecies, and how He was baptized and then tempted in the wilderness. But now, full of the Spirit, we see for the first time in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus is beginning to teach about Himself and His mission.

And what’s interesting is that as we continue in Chapter 4 we’ll see Jesus coming into Nazareth—a place that, by all rights, should have known Jesus. It was Jesus’ hometown. And Luke chooses this encounter between Jesus and the people who thought they knew Him best as the perfect way to introduce us to what Jesus’ ministry is going to be like.

We’re going to find that Jesus returns home to the people who thought they knew Him best so that they can get to know Him for who He really is. My prayer is that the same thing will happen today as we come to the Word of God—that there would be people all over this room, and all across our church who thought they knew everything they needed to know about Jesus. And that Jesus would come and show us what He’s like, and that we would get to know Jesus. That’s what’s going to happen in Nazareth as we pick up this text in verse 20.

I’m going to begin reading in Luke 4:16. Stand and read with me.

*Read Passage*

Luke 4:16–19 (NIV)

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

There’s a pretty intense ending there! Yet what we find in our passage this morning is, for the most part, just a standard synagogue service. After the Scripture is read, a teacher would take their place, sit down, and offer an interpretation of the Text, and that would be followed by a conversation with the crowd. All standard stuff in synagogues at that time.

What isn’t standard is the amount of attention they’re giving Jesus. The services in those days were respectful, but less formal. The teacher was coming up out of the crowd, and everyone was invited to participate. Yet we read that every eye was on Jesus, waiting expectantly for what Jesus would say. Clearly, the people of Nazareth thought they knew all they needed to know about Jesus, that they had all the relevant information and they were excited! They had watched Jesus grow up, and back in verses 14 and 15 it says that Jesus’ fame was beginning to spread as He was doing ministry in Galilee just a short distance away.

So what was Jesus up to in Galilee? Why all the attention?

***

And He’s coming to a synagogue near you! I mean, it’s hard for us to grasp the significance of this. This is, without exaggeration, the most exciting thing that’s happened to Nazareth in the history of the world! And if you look back at the passage, initially, it seemed to produce good fruit. I mean, any of us trying to squeeze our way into the synagogue at this point would have seen a bunch of people hanging on Jesus’ words.

The only problem is that these people did not know everything they needed to know about Jesus. And Jesus knew that all too well. He looked out at His family and His friends, those who had grown up with Him, those who had helped to raise Him, knowing that they had an understanding of Him that was way too small. They may have been there to experience Jesus, but they knew all that they cared to know about Him.

What about you, this morning? Are you content with how well you know Jesus?

Because here’s the reailty: Just like the people of Nazareth, whether this is your first time seriously considering Jesus, or whether you’ve known Jesus all your life, there are things that come into your mind when you think about Jesus that don’t reflect who He really is. In other words, every single one of us has room to get to know Jesus better!

This isn’t meant to be a knock to your walk with Jesus; those of us who have been in long term relationships understand that you never stop getting to know someone you love. And when you do, that’s the kind of familiarity that breeds contempt.

But when it comes to our relationship with Christ, I know you have some misconceptions because it’s true of everyone: We all have misconceptions about Jesus.

That’s one reason it’s so interesting to look at paintings of Jesus, or to see how He’s portrayed in film, because different portrayals of Jesus emphasize different things. Some are better than others, but none of them fully capture the goodness and the beauty and the truth of Jesus. As soon as they cast Jesus, they cut corners. As soon as they portray Him, they limit some of His glory.

That's not to say they're necessarily bad or wrong, but that's just to say they're limited; and ultimately, they're not Jesus. We can learn from what they have to offer, but to do so uncritically is to welcome misconceptions about who Jesus is, why He's here, and what He's up to. But more importantly, there’s an acquaintance that we can have with Jesus when we’re walking with Him intimately that’s too deep for words. But if we’re chasing a figment of our imagination, then we’re in trouble.

And knowing this, Jesus continues with this synagogue service that we’re reading about. And as He does, Jesus proceeds to give the one sermon that would confront their misconceptions about Him, the one sermon that flies directly in the face of what the people of Nazareth believed about Him. I mean, think about what Jesus could have said. He could have preached the most softball, hometown crowd sermon. But instead He chooses to confront their misconceptions—why? Because Jesus knows that we all have misconceptions, and that those misconceptions need to be addressed.

Jesus is not content to leave us with our misunderstandings of Him. Jesus wants us to get to know Him. Jesus doesn’t take the easy road and stroke their ego because He knows that getting to know Him is the most vital part of living! He knows that “in Him is life, and that life is the light of all mankind.” He knows that “to know me is eternal life.” And so Jesus does the hard thing of defying expectations. It starts here in Nazareth, it continues all throughout His ministry, and by God’s grace it’s still happening 2,000 years later. Friends, we need to allow Jesus to address our misconceptions about who He is. It’s the only way to get to know Him.

And now as we continue in the text, we’re going to see what some of those misconceptions were, and how Jesus responds.

“Jesus began by saying ‘today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ they asked.”

As Jesus begins to unpack the text from the scroll of Isaiah, the responses of the people begin to take a turn. They understand without a doubt that when Jesus says “TODAY this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing,” He’s claiming that God’s plan to redeem Israel is beginning now in His life and ministry. A claim that could only be true of the Messiah. And so they begin to respond, and that response is going to demonstrate for us that their preconceptions about Jesus are actually misconceptions about Jesus. But at first glance, especially if you’re reading in the NIV, it actually seems like the crowd is still tracking with Jesus. “They were speaking well of Him,” weren’t they? That means they were going along with it, right? Well, not necessarily.

This word in the Greek is maturo, which means “to bear witness to.” And actually there’s this new translation called The Second Testament that attempts to stay as close to the Greek as possible, and it translates this verse as follows: “All were witnessing him and were stunned at his gracious words journeying from his mouth and they were saying, ‘Isn’t this Yosef’s (Joseph’s) son?’ ” Pretty interesting, right? It really changes the connotation, and leaves open the possibility that they weren’t being flattered by Jesus' words, but challenged.

And actually that’s exactly how this story plays out in the other gospels. The parallel accounts make this really clear: Jesus is claiming to be the Messiah, and they don’t buy it. Their question is not coming out of their amazement. It’s not a flattered question. It’s a doubtful one. It’s as if they’re saying, “Ok, come on Jesus, we know who you are. Jesus, you may have become a great teacher, but you’re no Messiah. You’re Joseph's son. And we know your family too. Don’t rise above your station, Jesus.” Isn’t this Joseph’s son? We all know this is Joseph’s son.

No it isn’t! No you don’t! For all my AP Lit. students and English Majors out there, this is what we call some dramatic irony—Luke has set up a scene where Jesus knows and we the readers know that they are dead wrong. They’re tragically wrong. And they’re about to make the biggest mistake of their lives.

Let’s keep reading.

“Jesus said to them, ‘Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ ‘Truly I tell you,’ he continued, ‘no prophet is accepted in his hometown.’ ”

Jesus now begins to anticipate their response. He knows what they want: They want the spectacle. And, more specifically, they want healing and miracles. They’re saying, “heal yourself” which actually means “heal me, your hometown.” And they’re saying, “Do here all the miracles that you’ve become so famous for.” Jesus was revealing Himself as the Messiah, but they just wanted His power and His miracles. They wanted what He could do for them. They thought that Jesus was there to serve their agenda by bringing the quick fix to their problems. But as we’ll find, Jesus is after so much more than the quick fix.

Let’s keep reading. Because Jesus is continuing to turn up the heat. He knows they’re not receiving Him. He knows they’re rejecting Him like so many prophets of Old. So He references two stories from the Old Testament to call out their response.

“ ‘I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time… Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.’ ”

The prophets of old were rejected by their homeland, and were received by those outside the nation of Israel—by Gentiles. And not just by any Gentiles—by Sidonians and Syrians, the enemies of Israel, people like the Romans. It’s as if Jesus is saying, in the same way, if you don’t receive me, I’ll continue on my way. You can reject me, but you cannot stop me. Jesus is insinuating that His ministry going out even to the Gentiles. Why? Because Jesus knows that they are under the impression that they have some unique claim to Jesus. They thought that Jesus would give special preference to certain people, namely us, Israelites and those who knew Him before got famous.

And Jesus is saying, “No, you’ve missed it entirely.” You think I’m here to be just another teacher or prophet. You think I’m here to serve your agenda and provide a quick fix. You think I’m here to give you special preference. But I have so much more in mind, and you can’t see it because you can’t set aside your misconceptions and see me for who I am.

It’s like the people of Nazareth had this box for Jesus, and based on their experiences and their traditions and their personal desires, they had begun to put things into the box of who He is and what He offers. And we can imagine what some of those things were.

***

What is Jesus to do in the face of our neat box?

Imagine for one second that Jesus looked at our boxes and just said yes. Imagine Jesus sets up shop in Nazareth and lives out His days healing people and teaching nice things. Maybe He even leads a successful rebellion against Rome. What a tragedy it would be! A cosmic tragedy beyond comprehension. The people would get what they thought they wanted, but they would miss out on what they most desperately needed. On the one hand, Jesus wouldn’t have gone to the cross. And on the other hand they would live their entire lives not really knowing Jesus. But He wants so much more for us than that!

See, the reality is that we may not know everything that we need to know about Jesus, but maybe that’s good news. It’s good news because we serve a God who is pleased to reveal Himself to us. It’s good news because Jesus intentionally confronts our misconceptions because He wants to be known by us. This is how He responds! It’s what He did in Nazareth, and ot’s what He wants to do in your life. Because even though we have tried to remake Jesus in our own image to serve us, He want’s to break down our walls and our agendas to get back to us.

He wants to know us personally. He wants to walk with us intimately. And our misconceptions can get in the way of that because we can end up getting so self-focused that we grab our box and walk get on our way and leave Jesus behind.

And so Jesus looks at the box and says, “I know you want me to do all these things for you. I know you’ve heard of the miracles I’ve done, and you think that all these physical problems are the reason I’m here. But I’m here for far more than just the external!

Can’t you see, that though I’m here to proclaim good news to those who are poor on earth, I’m here in a broader sense for the poor in spirit, those who are in desperate need spiritually.

And yes, I’m here to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and for the oppressed—but the imprisonment and the oppression that you can see with your eyes isn’t the most important thing. The need that’s pressing on you is freedom from Rome, but there are needs that go so much deeper. I want to free you from the imprisonment of your hearts and your souls, from your addictions and poisons that are killing you from the inside out, and from the tyranny of the true Enemy.

And of course, I’m here to heal the blind. But you must understand that what I want is for you to be healed from the blindness of sin that has clouded more than just your eyes.

And that is going to require the biggest miracle ever. Haven’t you read the scroll of Isaiah? Don’t you know how it says, “surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:4-6). This is my mission: I came to be crushed so that you could be healed. But you are refusing to accept the deeper healing, the deeper life I’m here to offer because you’re too married to your ideas of who I am.

Jesus didn’t come to set up a kingdom and rise to the top; He came to be beaten, mocked, and destroyed.

What’s more, Jesus was not there to give special preference to certain people. He wasn’t there just for the people already in the community of God. Jesus came for everyone impacted by the curse of sin—including the Gentiles, the poor, the lepers, and the other social outcasts.

This was a huge sticking point for the people of Nazareth. And I think it can be for us as well. Any time we think, “The Gospel and the church is for us, but not them,” OR “The Gospel and the church is for them, but not me,” we demonstrate that we do not know Jesus. Can I just say, if you’re here this morning and you’ve somehow gotten the impression that the good news of Jesus’ death, and the life we have together in His name is for everyone else but you, that you have been lied to? Jesus’ love is so wide. There is so much room in His embrace. He came to welcome any person who will receive Him for who He is: He is the long awaited Messiah, He is our savior, and He is our King, and He does have a unique and authoritative claim on our lives, and it’s our duty to render our lives to Him.

Maybe you and Jesus need to take a long look at this box together. Maybe He’d say something like this:

“You know, there’s some really good stuff in there. But there's no room for the people I love. There’s no room for the life I’m calling you to. And there’s no room for the person I really am.

I’m here for everyone impacted by the curse of sin. You think I’m here for you, and to give your people special preference, when in truth you’re here for me, to be my ambassador, and I’m sending You to them! I want you to go in my name to the poor, and the broken, and the weary. There are people out there that I love outside of your nation, and outside of your churches. And how will they know about me unless you tell them? Where will they go if your door is closed to them? Who will hear their story if your ears won’t listen? Who will sit with them in the rain and in the hurt and in the silence and in the cold if your schedule is full?

America is your home, but it isn’t mine. My kingdom is not of this world. And when my kingdom comes, it will mean the reversal not only of sickness and death, but of every brokenness that is caused by sin.

I know there are a lot of pressing issues, but I didn’t come to always fix the pressing issue; I came to fix the deeper issue—the one you can’t fight with a sword. Conquering Rome and curing cancer can’t even begin to capture the depth of healing that I am bringing into this world.

The life you’ve planned for yourself seems very safe. I can see you love your life and your family, and you want to protect it. But I didn’t come to this earth because it was the safe thing to do. I came to this earth to die in your place so that you could die to yourself and find life in me. And it’s possible that I want to use your loneliness, and your wilderness, and your wandering, and your failures, and your pain to write a beautiful story that points both you and others to me.

Because I am the I AM. And you can’t put me in a box. I am the one who was, and is, and is to come.

No conception could ever grasp my goodness. My love is too big. My mercy is too wide. My compassion is too deep. My faithfulness is too longsuffering. My thoughts are too high, and my ways are too great.

But you don’t need to put me in a box. You just need to walk with me. I’ve already told you everything you need to know about Me right here in the Scriptures. But all you need to know right now is that I am the One. I am the Messiah. I am the Savior. I am the Lord. And I am the one who’s inviting you into the adventure of a lifetime. Behold! I stand at the door and knock.”

So what do we do? What happens when we get to know this Jesus? Here’s what happens: We respond. See because whenever we learn something about Jesus, it’s an invitation to respond. Jesus is not confronting us arbitrarily—He’s doing it with purpose. He’s doing it with love. He’s doing it to reveal Himself to us so that we can get to know Him. And what we need to do is to take our box and lay it at the foot of the cross, and say, “Jesus, there’s nothing else! Nothing else in this world will do. I just want you! You’re the only One! Show me again what you’re like. Show me again who you are.” This is our right response.

The people of Nazareth were too married to their box, and so they rejected Jesus, and continued to serve themselves. They tried to kill Him then and there. And they could reject Him; but they could not stop Him. I actually believe that this is why Luke moved this story forward in the narrative—because He knows that Jesus’ ministry will be marked by rejection, and end in His death. We can read earlier in the scroll of Isaiah, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:1-2).

He lived a life and died a death of humiliation and rejection for us on the cross to show us what He was really like. And so we can come to Jesus and respond differently. And if we don’t reject Him as Lord, then the other way to respond to a king is surrender.

Not on our terms. Not conditional surrender. Not you conceding the fight, but bargaining for certain things. Not trying to control the outcome. Remember, we need to lay our box down at the foot of the cross.

What we need is unconditional surrender. We surrender to Jesus on His terms. And we say, “Jesus, I know you’re better! I know your way is better. I know your love is better than anything in this world, and I know that if I have you, and if I lose all the other stuff, I have gained everything.” That’s what Paul says in Philippians 3 isn’t it? “I consider everything else a loss for the surpassing greatness” of what? “Of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord.”

What are you willing to get rid of to get close to Jesus? Are you willing to let go of your box in order to get to know Him? I want to invite you to dig in with me these next couple of weeks. Because in the end, it’s only when we get to know Jesus for who He really is that we can we follow Him as His disciples. And If we’re going to get to know Jesus, it all starts with surrender. And I promise you, the reality of who He is—it’s better than our box. It’s better than anything we can imagine.

He stands at the door and knocks, and He’s knocking for some of you this morning. Bow your heads and let’s open the door together.

***

COMMUNION:

And what better way to get to know Jesus than coming to the table where we remember the price He paid to save us. We’re going to close our service this morning with communion, and as we do, it’s an opportunity to come back to the cross, surrender to Jesus, and get to know Him. And so the ushers are going to pass out the elements as we sing. Please remember to take both of the cups that are stacked together. One will have the bread, and the other will have the juice. Then, once the song is over, I’ll come back up and lead us as we partake together.

***

First of all, we can imagine that they were pretty excited about Jesus being from their hometown. I mean, if Jesus was going up into Galilee and doing all these cool things, just imagine what He’ll do when He comes here! He owes us, right? He’ll save the best for us. He’ll do His best ministry right here.

And you know what, this is actually going to be really good for us because Nazareth doesn’t have that great of a reputation, and people think that nothing good could come out of Nazareth, so He could really flip the script on Nazareth! He could Make Nazareth Great Again!

If this all goes well enough, Nazareth could become a touring destination in Israel. He’s going to bring us a good name, and an economic boom. He’s going to bring us wealth. He’s going to bring us healing. Everyone will love us because of Him.

I still wonder when He’s going to start confronting the Romans, you know. Because what would be really cool would be if He could set up a new earthly kingdom and bring us with Him, or even just set up his throne right here!

And He is actually a really good teacher. My preference would be for Him to stick more to the miracle stuff, but either way as long as He can do the miracles whenever I need Him to the kids will like the philosophical stuff anyway.

But right about now, the box is looking pretty full. Jesus, what do you think? You’ll give special preference to us, and to Israel, right Jesus? You’re here to help us out and serve our agenda, right Jesus? And I mean you’re clearly a great teacher, but you’re not really serious about this Messiah stuff, right Jesus?

And maybe you’re here and you’re thinking, “Man that’s pretty silly. You’re right Clay they did have some things out of order. But I don’t really believe any of that.” Ok, fair enough. Maybe that’s not your box. So let’s try again.

Maybe in your box you’ve put something like this: Jesus really wants my life to go well. And that means, obviously, that I need a place to live, and a job that really makes me feel like I’m contributing to the world. And also you know one that pays pretty well. Just the basic stuff, and just enough so that I make a little more than the people around me, so that they see that following Jesus makes you successful.

And it isn’t good for man to be alone, so God doesn’t want me to be alone, which means He obviously wants me to get married. And I may have not met this spouse yet, but God really wants me to, so you know I’m going to make sure the word “Christian” is in bold on my tinder profile and my bumble profile and my hinge profile. And obviously God wants me to go forth and multiply, so it’ll be really easy to have and raise godly kids, and it’ll be even easier to find total sexual fulfillment. Even if I’m not married, like Jesus wants me to be fulfilled, right? Why would God give me these desires unless He wanted me to act on them?

And Jesus is here to solve a lot of problems, because problems are the result of sin. And this means that first of all He’s going to solve my long term health complications. It means no one I love will get sick. It means the tide will turn in American culture. Or at the very least He’s going to protect me and my rights from the government. And it means God is going to grow my church to be super big and respected in the community and everyone will like us all the time because of Jesus, and we’ll all live until we’re 112.

What do you think Jesus? Do you think you could make that work? You’ll give special preference to me and my people. You’re here to serve my agenda. And yeah, I believe that you’re my Messiah, whatever that means, but You don’t actually have a unique claim on my life.