Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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“The Blessings of the Gospel”
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What is the best sermon you have ever heard?
For some of you it is the sermon that brought you to saving faith in Jesus.
For some of you it is the sermon that brought you back to God from a backslidden condition.
Others maybe it was a sermon that brought you some direction, or comfort in a time of sorrow in your life.
But of all the great sermons that have ever been preached since the beginning of time; no one has ever preached a better sermon than Jesus first sermon that he preached in his hometown of Nazareth.
This sermon could easily be called; the gospel according to Jesus.
This sermon is about the blessings of the gospel; about what God does for us through Jesus Christ in salvation!
I remember my first sermon, I was a teenager, and we were on a bus on the way back from youth camp.
I stood up in the aisle of that bus, opened my Bible and preached; it was really, really bad.
Tess and I were dating, it was an own and off relationship at that time.
I remember that she was mad at me, and wore her sunglasses while I was preaching; which made me extremely nervous!
I wanted to say; take off those sunglasses you heathen; but I was scared of her; come to think of it, I still am!
But what we have here in these verses, is the first sermon that Jesus ever preached; and it is packed full of the blessings that come to a person who is saved.
Jesus has returned from the temptation in the wilderness in the power of the Holy Spirit into Galilee; and begin to teach in the synagogues.
Jesus ministry was first and foremost a preaching ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit!
And Jesus was honored and glorified by all the people that heard him.
The secret to the ministry of the Lord Jesus; and the secret of any effective ministry is the power of the Holy Spirit!
The power of the Holy Spirit is available to anyone who comes to God in faith asking for it.
But Jesus possessed the Holy Spirit in a unique way and to the fullest measure.
If Jesus depended on the Holy Spirit, how much more should we rely on the Holy Spirit!
Jesus is teaching in the power of the Holy Spirit all around Galilee; and he comes to his own home town of Nazareth.
V:16-“and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day…
If anyone had a right to think he didn’t need to go to church it was Jesus!
Can you imagine how many times he sat through a service with below average preaching?
Every sermon he heard was below average for him!
How easy it would have been for him to become critical, cynical and say, I can worship my father better in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, than with these hypocrites.
Yet throughout his life, Jesus maintained a regular pattern of going to church; this was “His custom”.
Jesus sang the Psalms, listen to God’s word, prayed with the corrugation, and gave an offering.
And if going to church to worship God was good enough for Jesus, then it needs to be a priority in my life!
Weekly worship attendance is the foundation for any life that glorifies God! -“do not forsake the assembling together…
On this particular Sabbath Jesus is in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth.
Jesus grew up in this town; he was 30 years old when he left to be baptized by John the Baptist and began his public ministry.
So the people here know him well.
Jesus goes to the synagogue and they hand him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
This was not surprising, no doubt Jesus had read the Scripture in that synagogue many times.
He had become a local celebrity by this time, so it was natural for them to ask him to preach.
Jesus finds the verses in the book of Isaiah that he wanted to read; this shows how familiar he was with the Old Testament.
This scroll that Jesus read from was not divided into chapters and verses.
Jesus read from:
-“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God”.
These verses are a prophecy about the coming of Christ and about the great day of salvation.
If the people had been listening carefully, they would have heard that the Savior, and the gospel would bring great blessings to five kinds of people: the poor, the brokenhearted, the prisoner, the blind, and the oppressed.
If they knew the Bible, they would have also connected this prophecy with the ancient custom of the year of Jubilee.
God told Moses, every 50th year was to be set aside as “the year of Jubilee” in the nation of Israel.
The details of this year of Jubilee are given in .
It was called by Isaiah, and Luke, “The acceptable year of the Lord”…Jubilee was a year, when those who were slaves were set free; when debts were forgiven, when lost property was returned to its original owners.
It was a time when they would blow the ram’s horn, and celebrate the liberty and freedom that God had given them from bondage.
But Isaiah is prophesying about a greater Jubilee; and Jesus is preaching his first sermon and telling those people, and us that He is the fulfillment of the Jubilee.
Jesus had come to be the Jubilee.
The people who heard Jesus read the Scriptures should have known that it was a prophecy about the Messiah; V:18-“the one who was anointed”
Jesus read these verses about the anointed one, the Christ, the Savior; then when He finished reading,
V:20-21“He closed the book, and gave it back to the minister, and sat down.
Every eye was on him.
And he said to them, this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears”.
Jesus was announcing the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.
Jesus was telling them He was the anointed one, the Messiah; the suffering servant had arrived, bringing salvation!
And all of the blessings that Isaiah had prophesied had arrived; Jesus said in, V:21-“today is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears”.
Jesus is telling us that everything Isaiah said was about him!
Jesus was clearly claiming to be the savior!
Who was Jesus?
He was the son of God, the Savior of the world!
What had he come to do?
Jesus had not come to bring a social revolution; like liberation theology teaches from these verses.
Jesus had not come to bring a political revolution; to overthrow the Roman government.
Jesus had come to bring a spiritual revolution; deliverance from the power of sin.
In, V:18, Jesus announces that He is the anointed one; and that He had come to bring the blessings that Isaiah had prophesied about.
Can you picture, Jesus filled with the spirit of God, in the house of God, with the word of God, preaching the gospel… Listen to the blessing the gospel brings.
Blessing #1:
1. Good News for the Destitute!
V:18-“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor…
The word gospel is good news; the gospel is the good news.
Jesus came preaching the gospel to the poor.
This means of course that Jesus cared for people who were poor financially; but it goes much deeper than finances.
The word poor means to be in abject poverty, utterly helpless, completely destitute.
This was the person who must depend upon someone else to sustain them.
It means this person realized they were poor, they had nothing; so they’re willing to crouch and beg.
Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit; recognizing they have nothing, there destitute and broke and bankrupt spiritually!
Someone said, it is a great day when you reach into your spiritual pockets, and turn them inside out and all you’ve got are little lint balls.
You will never be delivered from spiritual poverty until you realize you are spiritually busted and need God in your life!
This is the crux of becoming a Christian; salvation begins when you realize that you’re a sinner and that you have absolutely nothing to offer a holy, righteous God.
-“all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.
-“The wages of sin is death… because of our sin we deserve death, separation from God; and we have nothing to offer God, we are helpless to save ourselves.
Jesus came to preach the good news to the spiritually bankrupt and destitute like you and me.
The good news is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was buried in a borrowed tomb for our sins; but praise God He rose up from the dead!
-“but God demonstrated his love toward us: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”
The rest of -“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”
You come as bankrupt sinner, and receive the gift of God; which is eternal life through faith in the Lord Jesus today!
Jesus did not come to raise your standard of living; he came to give you far greater riches.
When you trust in him you receive the riches of his grace, love, forgiveness and eternal life.
Are you spiritually bankrupt this morning?
You are the perfect candidate to walk down this aisle and receive the riches of his grace.
The second blessing of the gospel He mentions is:
2. Healing for the Brokenhearted!
V:18-“he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted…
Here we have another evidence of Jesus deity; only God can heal broken hearts.
The best man you know cannot heal a broken heart.
There are times we wish we could heal broken hearts!
We weep with those who weep; and there are people in this church who have broken hearts; and our hearts are often broken with them; but we cannot heal their broken heart.
But the good news is; we can point people to someone who can heal broken hearts!
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