What Jesus Didn't Say...
Notes
Transcript
Doxology:
This is my Bible. It is God’s Holy Word. It is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path, and I will hide its words within my heart, that I might not sin against God. Amen!
Scripture Reference: Luke 4:16-30
Context
Context
Last week, we wrapped up John 4. Today, we are going to be jumping to Luke 4 so that we might pick up on what happens next.
Sometimes, the greatest messages are delivered in silence. As we look at this text today, we are going to see what Jesus didn’t say. And let me tell you, it was profound.
Pray and get started!!!
Content
Content
The Place
The Place
16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
After Jesus performs this miracle in Cana, He decides to go to Nazareth. It reminds us here in the text that this is where Jesus was raised.
I think this is an important detail, because we see how the people react later in the verses based upon this very detail.
Last week, we saw in John 4:
44 For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.
We will see this same thing quoted again today, here in this text. Jesus is back in His home region, if you will. Galilee is where He is from, more specifically, Nazareth. The closer He seems to get to home, to harder the people’s hearts seem to be. Why is that? It is not that they do not believe in the Scriptures promise of a coming Messiah, it is that they refused to believe that Jesus was indeed the fulfillment of that prophecy.
This is going to be key to the events and teaching of this text.
Now, He is back in His hometown. Being the Sabbath, the first place He goes is to the synagogue. He goes to church. Notice it said that this was His custom. In other words, Jesus rarely, if ever, missed going to church.
And when He came into the synagogue, they decided to let Him be the One to read from the Scriptures on that day.....but what did He read?
The Passage
The Passage
17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Once He takes His place amongst the people, they bring to Him the scroll of Isaiah. He turns to Isaiah 61 and reads verse 1 and part of verse 2.
This is a Messianic text.
The people would have been familiar with this text because they longed for deliverance. They read these verses, and many others that referred to the coming of the Messiah and knew most of them by heart. They would have prayed these verses to God, asking for the fulfillment of this prophecy to come true.
When He first read these verses, the people probably smiled, hoping that they would see this prophecy come to pass during their lifetime. Being under Roman rule, there was no better time for this prophecy to come true than right now.
He doesn’t read the whole text.
1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn,
He leaves off “And the day of vengeance of our God”. It is important to note this, as there is just as much emphasis on what Jesus did not say, as there is on what He did say.
There is coming a day when the vengeance of God will be realized against all of those who refuse to believe in Jesus as the Christ. The future day of judgment will come to pass, but Jesus is here outlining something else. He wants the people to know why He is here. In other words, He is outlining His ministry unto them.
This text is just that. It is an outline of why He is here. It is an outline of what He came to do.
He knows the hearts of the people in front of Him. They longed to be free from physical oppression; they wanted to be free from the Romans. When they read this text, this is how they interpreted it. They interpreted this text to mean that the Messiah would deliver them from foreign oppression, and set them free in that regard. Jesus wants them to see the true meaning of the text. This text is not about physical oppression but spiritual oppression.
The day of vengeance is not a reference against those who have lifted a sword against the Jews, it is rather a reference against those who have not lifted the sword of the Spirit and fought for God.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me
This opening phrase is the most important of all. It sets the stage for understanding the rest of the text. If the text starts by saying, “The Spirit of Lord is upon Me”, then the rest of the text must be understood from a spiritual perspective. This means that we are not dealing with the financially poor, but the spiritually poor; we are not dealing with the physically wounded, but the spiritually wounded; not the physically blind, but the spiritually blind; not those who are physically oppressed, but those who are spiritually oppressed.
Jesus claims that the Spirit of God is upon Him. We know this to be true from His baptism:
32 And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.
Because He has anointed Me
Why did the Spirit come upon Jesus? Is it only because He was the Son of God? Is it only because of His divine nature that the Spirit came upon Him?
No. The Spirit came upon Him and anointed Him, because there were things He needed to do. There was purpose for the anointing of the Spirit. The text makes it clear that “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because.....” This means that the Spirit came upon Jesus to do all of that which follows: to preach the Gospel, to heal, to proclaim liberty and recovery of sight, to set free. All of this was accomplished through the work of the Holy Spirit of God.
Listen....nothing has changed. The Holy Spirit comes upon us for the very same reason. Yes, Jesus’s situation and ours are different. He was perfect, and we are not. He did not have the sin nature that you and I are born with. He did not need to be saved, we do. But the Holy Spirit does not come upon us just for the purpose of salvation. He comes within us, so that we might be used of God. Salvation is simply the first step. Each person is regenerated by the Holy Spirit, but then they are gifted by the Holy Spirit. These gifts are to be used to invite others to Christ and then invest in those who do
To Preach the Gospel to the Poor
This word for poor means “to cringe”, “to shrink back”, or “to cower”. It is the thought of a beggar who shamefully asks for the support of others.
In spiritual terms, it speaks of those who are spiritually bankrupt. They have absolutely nothing to which they can approach God with. They are completely destitute. They acknowledge their spiritual bankruptcy, that all their deeds are as filthy rags before a Holy, righteous God. They acknowledge their need for salvation.
To Heal the Brokenhearted
Luke 1–5: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Message
Spiritual poverty is not an act; it is not false piety or humility, but genuine. The spiritually poor are “humble and contrite of spirit” (Isa. 66:2); they are “brokenhearted” and “crushed in spirit” (Ps. 34:18). Possessing a “broken spirit” and a “broken and a contrite heart” (Ps. 51:17), they are like the repentant tax collector, who was “unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ ” (Luke 18:13).
To Proclaim Liberty to the Captives
Many people struggle with this concept of freedom. Instead of seeing Christianity as a means to be free, they see it rather as a means of restriction. They see it as something that ties them down, restricts them from certain pleasures of life, and commands them to be happy about it.
This is one of the greatest lies of Satan. No one is free. There is only two sides to this coin. You are either a slave unto God or a slave unto Satan. The difference is that one of these masters is everything good, and the other is everything bad. A good master cares for his slaves. Yes, they serve Him, but He seeks to honor them in every way. He gives them more than they could ever ask for. An evil master hates his slaves, treats them poorly, and kills them the moment they become unuseful to his cause. That is Satan.
Jesus claims that the Gospel is for those who realize they are in bondage. It will be received by those who are willing to lay aside their pride and admit they are in chains.
And Recovery of Sight to the Blind
Spiritual blindness is the natural state of man. We are naturally blinded to the realization of our sin. At some point in our life, the Holy Spirit will come by our way, speak the truth of the gospel into our hearts, and only then can the realization of our brokenness, lostness, be realized.
There are times in Scripture where we see God judicially blinding the minds of unrepentant sinners.
40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.”
There are other times in Scripture where we see Satan doing the blinding:
4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
Jesus has come to open blind eyes.
78 Through the tender mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
79 To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.”
12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
To Set at Liberty Those who are Oppressed
These are those who want to be faithful, but are overwhelmed with the circumstances of life and are feeling the oppression of not being able to keep the Law of God to its fullest. They are ashamed of this and feel the weight it brings upon them.
To Proclaim the Acceptable Year of the Lord
Jesus has come to put an end to the reign of terror within the hearts of these people. There is freedom, there is peace, there is healing, and God wants that for all of you.
The Purpose
The Purpose
20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him.
21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
After Jesus gets done reading those few verses, He gives the scroll back to the attending priest and sits down. This signified that He was done reading. Nothing else needed to be said.
Now all eyes were upon Him, as they waited to hear what He had to say next.
Remember the anticipation of this text naturally because of what conditions they were currently in. They longed for the Messiah to come, and now Jesus has just spoken concerning His prophecy.
Was he going to tell them to pray for its fulfillment?
Was He going to say that they should expect it to happen soon?
No, He tells them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
For us, this may seem to be a broad claim, a vague claim, but to them, there was absolutely no confusion as to what Jesus meant. He just openly proclaimed to be the Messiah. His ministry is officially underway.
This was indeed the purpose for why He went there that day. He needed to openly proclaim who He was and why He was here.
It was not to deliver them from the Romans, it was to deliver them from sin. The ministry was not about a physical deliverance, as they all suspected, but a spiritual deliverance. Unfortunately, they were not nearly as concerned with this.
They wanted to be free from the Romans. They wanted to be recognized as their own people. They wanted to be free of foreign oppression.
This should have been cause to rejoice. The very thing they had been praying for had now come to pass. The Messiah had come! The prophecy was fulfilled.
Unfortunately, we do not see this as a result. Instead, we see a very different side from this crowd in the synagogue.
The Problem
The Problem
22 So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”
They all heard what He said. They all understood what He said. At first, it said that they marveled at the gracious words that He spoke.
When Jesus read this Scripture and taught them concerning its meaning and fulfillment, He did so with a positive attitude and an encouraging demeanor. He did so in a way that it gave them hope. He did so in a way that it resonated with their spirit. I think it is important to note that here.
He didn’t beat them over the head with the Word of God, He spoke the truth of God’s Word in a very uplifting way. He did so in a way that would inspire a man to be better, to do better.
But.....though they marvelled at how he taught them, they hearts were full of doubt. “Is this not Joseph’s son?”
They could not get past this thought that this man before them was just a carpenter’s son. He was a poor man of lowly estate. He was from Nazareth.
Though He spoke from a wonderful text, that resonated with where they were socially, and did so in a way that resonated with them mentally, they simply could not get to where He was spiritually. They could not accept the fact that Jesus was the Messiah.
23 He said to them, “You will surely say this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country.’ ”
Hearing what was being said about Him, Jesus spoke up and addressed the elephant in the room. He understood their concern. He understood their struggle. Essentially, he said, “Look guys, I get it.”
He quotes an old proverb that everyone would have known that simply states in modern day terms, “Prove it.”
We have heard of your miracles in Capernaum and elsewhere, do something here before us also, that we believe also.
He tells them what is own their minds, without them even having to say it out loud. But then He continues to reason with them.
24 Then He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.
Again, He says, “I get it.” You know me as Joseph’s son, but in reality, I am actually the Son of God. You struggle to believe this because you have seen me before you all these years. You have watched me grow up among you. All the signs were there, but you refuse to believe nonetheless.
The Precedent
The Precedent
Jesus now means to drive home the point that He is trying to make by giving them so examples from history of this very concept:
25 But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land;
26 but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.
27 And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”
Elijah and the widow of Zaraphath
The first example He provides is that of Elijah. He recalls the drought during his day. They all know the account of history. Elijah was held in high regard of the Jewish people because he was one of only two people recorded in the Scriptures that were taken up by God to heaven without having to face death.
Jesus points out that during that drought, there would have been many widows throughout the Jewish people who would have been suffering, but God did not send Elijah to any of them. Rather, He sent Elijah to a Sidonian widow of Zarephath.
This was a hard pill for the Jews to swallow, for the Jews of that day and for the ones Jesus now spoke with. The reason this drought came about in the first place, was because of King Ahab and his pagan wife Jezebel. Interestingly enough, Jezebel was from
31 And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians; and he went and served Baal and worshiped him.
This means that God sent his prophet to aid a woman from the hometown of Jezebel, but did not send Elijah to any of his own people. Why? Because of their unbelief during this time. The widow believed in God, but the Jewish people worshipped Baal under the leadership of Ahab.
Instead of receiving this account of history as a call to truth, they were angered by the fact that Jesus would bring this up.
Elisha and Naaman the Syrian
The second example, and probably the one that would have resonated with them even more, was that of Elisha. Elisha was also held in high regard by the Jewish people, because he received a double portion of Elijah’s spirit and performed double the miracles that Elijah performed. He was a Godly man, revered by the Jewish people.
Once again, Jesus brings up the fact that during Elisha’s time, there were many lepers amongst the Jewish people, but Elisha was not called by God to heal any of them. Rather, He is used to bring healing to a a Syrian man named Naaman.
This was also one of those moments that the Jews did not like to talk about.
1 Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper.
Naaman was the commander of the army that was bringing oppression against the Jews. God allows Elisha to heal him, but did not allow Elisha to heal any of the Jewish lepers.
Leprosy was also viewed as a picture of sin. It started off as a small blemish in the skin. As the infection grew worse, it would then spread all over the body. Sin operates the same way. It starts off usually as something small, but if not treated accordingly, it begins to fester and grow like a cancer until it consumes the infected.
Jesus is painting a very clear picture with these two examples. Salvation is a work of God. It always has been. But unless one is willing to admit that they are spiritually poor, spiritually imprisoned, spiritually blind, and spiritually oppressed, they will reject the salvation of God.
Salvation is not exclusive to the Jewish nation alone. If they would not recognize their own spiritual condition, then God would send salvation to the Gentiles.
This was meant to help them see their lostness. It was given to humble them to the point of admitting that they were no different than the Jews of Elijah and Elisha’s day. It was spoken so that they might receive the salvation of God.
Instead, they were angered by what He said. They refused to bring themselves to that level of depravity and admit their need for spiritual restoration. Instead of leaning into Jesus they leaned against Jesus.
28 So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
29 and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.
They leaned so hard against Jesus, they literally tried to push Him over a cliff. They tried to kill Him. They wanted Him dead.
The Proof
The Proof
30 Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.
Last week, we witnessed a group of people who are in the third category of unbelief. This means that they had seen the Man and heard the Message, but they still needed to see some miracles in order to believe. After they witnessed the miracles of Jesus, then they believed.
Some might try to argue that Jesus should have simply done that here. “If Jesus would have simply done some miracles for these people, they would have believed also.”
We must remember that we are dealing with God here. God knows the heart of every person. He knows what stage of unbelief a person is at. He knows whether a person will believe in His Son Jesus or not and what it will take to get them there.
“Yea, but it isn’t fair that some got to witness miracles and others didn’t” some might say. Well, here is the miracle. The text just said that Jesus “passed through the midst of them”. This means that He literally became invisible, or that they were blinded in this moment to who He was, so that He could pass through their midst unrecognized. Either way, that is indeed a miracle.
They led him out to the edge of the cliff, this means that they were pushing Him along the way. He was in the front of the crowd. He probably had a man on each arm, forcing Him that way.
Jesus did not pull a slick one here. This was not a magic trick. This was a miracle.
They got their miracle.....and guess what? They still didn’t believe.
5 Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.
6 And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.
58 Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
These people refused to believe in Christ, even after witnessing the miracles.
Please do not be like them. See Him for who He is. He is the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the World.
Commitment
Commitment
You will never be free from physical oppression. No matter where you go or what you do, there will always be those who stand against you and stand opposite you. To think that you will ever find a place in life without opposition is not feasible. Jesus didn’t say that.
Jesus didn’t come to offer a better situation, He came to offer salvation. Salvation is something you take with you through the heard times. It is something that stands with you against the opposition. It changes you who are on the inside, so that the things on the outside don’t control you.
Do you want to be free? Do you want to be healed? Jesus can do both, but you have to believe that fully in your heart.
