Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

[CIT] In his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus revealed himself as the Christ, but the people rejected him and tried to kill him.

A Prophet in His Hometown

[CIT] In his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus revealed himself as the Christ, but the people rejected him and tried to kill him.

Driven Out of Town

[PROP] The Scriptures reveal who Jesus is, but we all must decide whether we will follow Jesus or drive him out.

[INTER] Why would we drive Jesus out?

Because Jesus is who he is and will not be who we want him to be.

Because Jesus does what he does and will not do what we want him to do.

Jesus is unconformable and uncontrollable, and some only want a savior they can conform and control.

They want to conform the identity of their savior to their own and control how their savior thinks, speaks, and acts.

Usually such people are only imagining themselves as their own savior; usually only thinking of Jesus thinking, speaking, and acting as they do.

This is not a savior who will save.

But we should answer a question we often assume everyone in church knows: Why do we need a savior in the first place?

What is it that we need to be saved from?

This question receives many different answers in our day.

Some say that we need to be saved from illness, poverty, or purposelessness, but all of this is a lesser salvation compared to the greater salvation offered to us in the Bible.

Through faith in his Son, Jesus, God offers to save us from his eternal wrath on account of our sins.

Hell has never been popular with us sinners.

We sinners love our sin and don’t want to hear that the price for our sin is eternal death in Hell.

This has led some people to conclude that Hell must not exist, must not be that bad, or must not last that long.

The word of God, however, says that Hell does exist.

It was a place prepared for the devil and his angels and a place all who follow the devil in sin against God will go.

Hell is a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth; a place filled with the smoke of torment.

And it is an eternal place where the weeping and gnashing of teeth never ceases; where the smoke of torment rises up forever and ever.

Don’t be fooled!

You need a savior, but not one to save you from illness or poverty or purposelessness.

You need a savior to save you from God’s wrath in eternity!

One day you will die and then stand before God in judgment.

If you have repented of your sins and trusted in Jesus as God’s Son sent to save you from his wrath then you will be saved.

Rather than God’s eternal wrath, you will experience God’s eternal love.

Rather than Hell, there will be Heaven.

Rather than weeping and gnashing of teeth, there will be eternal joy and eternal delight in the presence of God forevermore.

If you have not repented of sin and have not trusted in Jesus, then you won’t be saved.

And Hell awaits you with all its horror.

I begin in that way this morning because I want you to understand what’s at stake not only in your life but also in the lives of those to whom Jesus came at Nazareth.

To reject him as Savior as they did was to choose eternal wrath.

We must not make the same mistake.

We must not drive Jesus out.

We must take him in.

[TS] These truths will be reinforced as we look at this passage in three PARTS...

Major Ideas

Part #1: The Savior Reveals Himself (vv.

16-21).

[Exp] By the time Jesus came to his hometown of Nazareth, he had done incredible things in the region of Galilee.

He had taught with authority the likes of which no one had ever seen before.

He had healed with a touch and even with just a word.

And he had forgiven sins.

So there was an amazing sense of expectation as Jesus came to teach in the synagogue in Nazareth.

What would he say?

What would he do here in his hometown?

The scroll with God’s word through Isaiah the prophet was handed to Jesus.

He unrolled it and read mainly from but with a little mixed in.

The general them of his message was that the time of the Lord’s favor was at hand; that today was the day of salvation for God’s people and it had arrived in him!

There could be no mistaking Jesus’ message as read from Isaiah, rolled up the scroll, sat down with eye fixed on him, and began to teach with the words, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” (v.

21).

Oh how the people in that synagogue must’ve loved to hear this message

You see, the people in Jesus’ day were wondering who the “me” would be in .

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me...”

“He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives...”

Who is the “me” who would be anointed by God like this?

Who is the “me” who would proclaim God’s favor like this?

Who is the “me” would could actually bring about the time of God’s favor?

You see, this “me” would not only proclaim these things but also bring them to be.

He will not just talk about it, but do it.

He will actually set at liberty those who are oppressed as says.

Jesus was saying that the “me” of and and all the other passages in the OT that pointed to the Christ; he was saying that all those passages were fulfilled that day in him!

[Illus] Preachers like me try to get cute at times.

We try to surprise people with some part of our sermon, catch them off guard, maybe even shock them.

In my preaching practicum class in seminary we preached sermons and listened to each other preach.

One guy named Rob tried to surprise us in one of his sermons by starting with this story about someone who did something incredible or was in mortal danger, I don’t remember the details, but what I do remember is that it was immediately apparent from the beginning of the story that the story was really about him.

That’s why when he finally revealed that the story was about him, most people just nodded their heads as if to say, “We knew all along were that story was going.”

I don’t think the people in the synagogue in Nazareth on this particular Sabbath day knew where Jesus was going when he began to read from don’t think they expected Jesus to say that what he read was about him.

The sheer audacity of making such a claim would have likely driven that thought from their minds.

The sheer audacity of making such a claim

How could anyone have the guts to say, “This passage about the Christ, about God’s anointed one; this passage is about me,”?

But the sheer audacity of making such a claim

For anyone else, this would have been blasphemous, but for Jesus it was the truth.

[App] Luke showed us in that Jesus was the anointed one, the one on whom God’s Spirit rested...

This means that in Jesus - and only in Jesus - there is good news for the poor!

In Jesus and only in him there is liberty for the captives and recovery of sight for the blind!

Only in him is there liberty for the oppressed!

Only in him do we find favor with God!

Now,

[App]

But these things have less to do with the material world and more to do with the spiritual world.

The good news that Jesus proclaims is good news to the poor in spirit; those humble enough to recognize their need for God’s grace.

The liberty he has won for us through his death and resurrection is not liberty from Babylon or Rome, but liberty from slavery to sin!

Although Jesus healed the blind, the blindness he heals us all of is not primarily physical but spiritual.

He gives us eyes to see the truth about God in him!

The oppression that Jesus’ lifts off us is the oppression of death which hangs over us until we come to trust him!

The year of the Lord’s favor is for all eternity for those who repent of sin and believe Jesus when he says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing?”

[TS] Do you believe it?

Part #2: The People’s Doubt and the Savior’s Response (vv.

22-27).

[Exp] The people seemed to respond favorably to Jesus’ words, but they were more impressed with his delivery and tone than with his content.

He spoke well and the message was about the year of the Lord’s favor, but what they took issue with was that he said the Christ prophesied in was him.

That’s why they asked, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (v.

22).

As far as most anyone knew in Nazareth, Jesus was Joseph’s son, so then how could he claim to be the Christ?

Of course, Jesus wasn’t Joseph’s son.

He was born of the virgin Mary as the Holy Spirit came upon her and overshadowed her.

Jesus was the Son of God, not the son of Joseph.