Luke 4:18-30

16 And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read.

17 And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written,

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,

Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set free those who are oppressed,

19 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

20 And He closed the book, 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.”

22 And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”

23 And He said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’ ”

24 And He said, “Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown.

25 “But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land;

26 and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.

27 “And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

28 And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things;

29 and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff.

30 But passing through their midst, He went His way.

Pray

I.       The Account Which Jesus gave of His Own Mission

A.   to preach the gospel to the poor (verse 18)

1.     Jesus did not come to

a)    Not remove them from poverty

b)    Not to end their suffering

c)     But to preach Good news to them

2.     What is the good news to the poor

3.     To heal the broken hearted KJV

a)    How does Jesus heal the broken hearted  

(1)  To evangelize them

(a)    To make that preaching effectual; to bring it, not only to their ears, but to their hearts  

(2)  Living water

(3)  Life the bread of life

(4)  Hungering and thirsting no more

(5)  Riches in Heaven

b)    It is not just the economic poor but the spiritually poor as well 

B.   to proclaim release to the captives (verse 18)

1.     What captives was Jesus speaking about

2.     Jesus was not in a prison

3.     Jesus was speaking about the captives of the congregation

a)    That people be loosed from the bonds of guilt

b)    From bondage of corruption, corruption binds us 

c)     By the Holy-Spirit and grace

C.   To recovery of sight to the blind (verse 18)

1.     What blind folks was he addressing

2.     Jesus did heal blind folks not there

3.     People who did not see what he was talking about

4.     How many times do we not see what is being talked about

a)    Do we dismiss it or try and get the meaning?    

D.   To set free those who are oppressed (verse 18)

1.     What oppressed people?

2.     Were they set free?  

E.   To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord (verse 19)

1.     Jubilee

2.     What occurred

3.     Redemption of all debts and freedom from them to all people…

Leviticus 25:10-12

10 ‘You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.

11 ‘You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines.

12 ‘For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field.

13 ‘On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.

14 ‘If you make a sale, moreover, to your friend or buy from your friend’s hand, you shall not wrong one another.

a)     A release through the land

(1)  All inhabitants

(2)  All debts were canceled

(3)  All land reverted to the original owners

(4)  A Sabbath for the land as well no sowing or reaping

(5)  No gathering of untrimmed vines (they were intended for the poor in the land always)

(6)  You shall not wrong each other in business transactions regarding this year

(7)  The foreigner or the poor are not to be mistreated, but cared for by the household of God       

II.    The Effect It Produced Upon His Audience

A.    Initial response (verse 22)

1.     Wow, isn’t this Joseph’s son?

2.     Pretty good for a carpenter….

3.     They were all impressed

4.     The portion of Scripture Jesus read was Isaiah 61:1-2, a messianic passage.

5.     Jesus concluded His reading with the words, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor—stopping in the middle of the verse without reading the next line in

Isaiah 61:2

2  To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord

And the day of vengeance of our God;

To comfort all who mourn,   

6.     God’s vengeance?

B.   We al have an initial response the Jesus and we are wow’d

1.     What determines if we go on with Jesus is how we handle it when he really wows us (verse 23 and following)

a)    Jesus points out their thoughts and reflects them back to them…

(1)  Do the sensational things you did in the other towns

(2)  We want to see a miracle like you did in the other places we have heard

b)    A prophet is not honored in his own home town…

(1)  We are not honored because we are know in the natural

(2)  Jesus was introducing the spiritual to them by reading them their thoughts and they did not recognize it for what it was spiritual

c)     They immediately began to question the authority with which He could say these things

d)    How could Joseph’s Son—the Boy they saw grow up in their town—be the Messiah?

2.     Jesus, sensing their opposition began to teach the further

a)    The example of Elijah the Tishbite

(1)  The miracle of the famine in Israel

(a)    No rain famine because of the prophets mere word….

(2)  Where was the prophet sent verse 26

(a)    Zarephath, in the land of Sidon

(b)   Was that part of the nation Israel?

(c)    North of Jerusalem coastal cities of pagan worship

(d)   God used to deliver the prophet

b)    Jesus mentions the socially weak (widows) and marginalized (lepers) here

c)     Sidon and Syria were among the particularly despised areas

d)    Jesus’ point:

(1)  Nazareth will not receive him, but non-Jews will  

3.     Two instances of God’s prophets ministered miraculous acts of grace to Gentiles while Israel was in unbelief

a)    Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (vv. 25-26; cf. 1 Kings 17:8-16)

b)    Elisha and Naaman the Syrian leper (Luke 4:27; cf. 2 Kings 5:1-19)  

c)     Jesus’ mention of Gentiles rather than Jews having God’s blessing caused the people to be furious (Luke 4:28)

d)    They attempted to kill Him, but He walked right through the crowd (v. 30)

e)     How quickly the attitude of this crowd moved from wonder and awe to rage and murder

4.     We say….Those silly people didn’t get Jesus was talking to them?

a)    Do we get it when Jesus is talking to us?

(1)  When God has something spiritual for us….

(a)    We do not like to hear

(b)   So we reject it out of hand

(c)    And say “I did not like that word this morning”

(d)   Hope mike hears better next week….

(e)   That was ruff I hope the person sitting next to me repents so mike will get off this subject

(f)     Say the word of God is for me

(g)   The red letters are for me too

b)    We allow prejudice to creep in as an objection against the humbling doctrine of the cross

c)     It is the word of God that stirs up our wrath toward the word

d)    We blame the conduct or manner of the speaker, rather then repent