Where’s The Love?

Luke 4:14–30
Sunday, March 18, 2018
Pastor Randy Smith

I can still vividly remember when I came to Christ in 1989. It was a turning point in my life for several reasons. With college just completed, my athletic career was over. The summers of bouncing at a bar had also ended. In my final year at Illinois State University I lived in a house with 8 other guys. We graduated and realized it was time to grow up and begin our careers. Mine was education.

But there was also something God was doing in my heart. I can’t remember anyone giving me a full out Gospel presentation. I didn’t grow up going to church and can only recall a couple times walking into a Protestant church. I never had any friends that were Christians. Yet I knew that I needed God in my life. Despite the success in many secular areas, I personally knew that something was missing. I felt the weight of my sin. I knew there had to be something more to life.

By God’s grace I almost immediately ended up in a good Bible-teaching church. For the first couple years I basically kept to myself. No one prompted me to read the Bible. I just read my Bible because it felt natural. I wanted to read my Bible and did my best to live it out. Mature men did disciple me later on, but those first couple years were just me and the Lord and radical changes were happening in my life. I was all in for Christ.

God showed Himself to me in such marvelous ways. The joy, the peace, the purpose – my life had never seemed better or more complete.

I can’t really remember anyone telling me to share my faith, but I was telling everyone I knew about Jesus. I just enjoyed talking about it. Also, I wanted all these people I loved to be forgiven and participate in the same experiences I enjoyed. I’d tell them it’s free! It’s life-changing! It was a greater satisfaction than everything I was told all my life would make me happy. Surely they would want what I discovered, but it didn’t take long for me to realize they didn’t! I remember being so confused.

No one wanted it. They didn’t want to even hear about it. Moreover, people responded to me in a way I least expected. Friends and family, specifically everything from “A little religion is good, but you are fanatical” to ways to gradually pull out of the cult I was involved with to “It’s too late for you to be accepted by God” to “You are missing out on a lot of fun.” I can still remember these specific conversations and the specific people I spoke with some 29 years later.

We do not like opposition. For some, the Bible teaches opposition derails their walk with God. For me, it only made me stronger in the faith as it forced me to draw nearer to God and really examine what I believe and explore ways to respond to the critics.

Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Jesus said in Matthew 10:22, “You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.” Opposition is inevitable if you seek to speak of Christ and live a life that copies His holiness.

Now with that thought we could preach many sermons. We could talk about the need to evangelize. We could talk about the need to live as light amongst a dark world. We could talk about the reality of our faith offending people, but being careful to not let our attitude offend people (as many so-called Christians do). But what I wish to talk about for the remainder of our time is what I believe to be the main point of our passage from Luke 4.

Nobody in the history of the world was more opposed and hated than Jesus. I’d like to explore the “why” behind that this morning. Let’s see why we should be surprised, not when we are being persecuted, but rather why we are not being persecuted. Jesus said in John 15:8, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.” This morning, let’s see how the world treated Jesus.

As I already mentioned, the author of this Gospel, Luke, is more concerned about an organized presentation than a chronological presentation of the life of Christ. So far in chapter 4 we see the author have a clear purpose in mind. Last week it was the opposition of Satan. This week it will be the opposition of people. There is a theme going on here.

The Popularity (verses 14–22)

Before we get to the opposition, let’s begin our first point with our Lord’s popularity.

Although Luke glances over it, we must remember that the very beginning of our Lord’s ministry was received with acceptance from the people. In verse 14 we read that “news about Him spread through all the surrounding district.” Verse 15 says, “He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all.”

So let’s set the context. Jesus is the hometown boy from Nazareth. We know Jesus never sinned as in doing anything bad. Also without sin, He was enabled to always treat people with kindness, patience, gentleness and love. We know He was able from a young age to hold theological conversations with the most spiritual elite (Lk. 2:46-47). According to verse 23, He already did some miracles in Capernaum. No doubt He was a rising star and embraced by the people in the area.

So one day, verse 15, He’s “teaching in their synagogue.” The synagogue order of service consisted of singing of the Psalms, reciting the great Shema, the Eighteen Benedictions, the reading of Scripture, a sermon and then closure with the Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6.

Jesus was asked to teach. Of course they worked off the Old Testament. Everything was on scrolls. Everything was written by hand. Most synagogues only had a limited number of scrolls. Perhaps Jesus requested it, but we read in verse 17 that the “book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him.” Without the aid of chapters and verses, Jesus found the specific place from where He wanted to read – Isaiah 61:1-2.

Recorded for us in verses 18-19 He said, “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, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”

This is a passage that was written some 600 years earlier. Every Jew knew exactly what was being said. Every Jew knew that these wonderful passages spoke of the time that God would send His Messiah.

Specifically, verse 18, we read that God’s Spirit would be upon Him. In other words, He would be the anointed one of God. In the Greek, the Messiah would be “the Christos,” or as we would say, “the Christ.” Furthermore, His mission would be, verse 18, to heal the poor, release the captives, give sight to the blind and set free the oppressed. Yes, there would be a physical dimension, but ultimately these were to be taken spiritually. Let’s consider each of these components.

We are spiritually poor, bankrupt of favor to God, nothing in the spiritual portfolio, slaves to sin and deserving hell. Despite all our attempts at religion and goodness, we are unable to make ourselves rich before God because of our spiritual debt. The Messiah will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves by making us rich with His grace.

We are spiritually blind. On our own we do not see and understand who God is. Hence we do not want God. We are engulfed in the darkness. The Messiah will open our spiritual eyes and help us to see and desire the truth.

And we are captive and oppressed. We are in bondage to our sin in both a love for it and on our own an inability to be delivered from it. We are unknowingly tools for the devil. We are lost, plagued with guilt and without hope, groping in this world for significance as we turn from one false god to another leading to greater spiritual slavery. The Messiah will give us power to defeat sin and Satan. He will break our shackles and provide spiritual liberation.

The Messiah will, verse 19, “Proclaim the favorable year of the LORD.” This is a fulfillment with what the Jews celebrated called “The Year of Jubilee” (every 50 years – Lev. 25) which represented freedom, release of debt, cancelation of sin. Jesus is our Jubilee and all of this is available for those humble enough to receive it. We’ll come back to that.

Amazing promises regarding the Messiah. Jesus reads these words from Isaiah. Verse 20 says He gave the book back to attendant and sat down, which was the customary position for teaching. The verse says the eyes of all were fixed on Him. What will He say? He begins His sermon with these amazing words: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

What? Did you get that? He reads the prophecy about the Messiah and then basically says, “You are looking at Him!”

Okay, so here is the moment in the sermon that we turn to the second point and examine the rejection of Jesus. This is where most sermons on this passage often go. However, I do not believe this is the turning point. Verse 22 clearly records the response of the people and it is not negative, but rather positive. “And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips.”

Let’s keep this in context. The people knew there was something special about Jesus. The expectancy for the Messiah was at an all-time high. The nation had already falsely crowned people they though were the Messiah. I do not believe they rejected Jesus. I believe they sought to accept Him as the Messiah.

Remember, nothing good comes out of Nazareth, right? Could it be that this poor town of some 400 citizens has given birth to the Messiah? Verse 20, “This is Joseph’s son!” He’s one of our own! The hometown boy is going to forever put our town on the map!

How is Jesus going to respond to that?

The Rejection (verses 23–30)

Now we see things shift as we move to the second point.

Verses 23-24, “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.’ And He said, ‘Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown.’”

Basically what Jesus is saying is that the people who are embracing Him in Nazareth are embracing Him for all the wrong reasons. Jesus could have proclaimed a false doctrine that was more in line with their beliefs, but as God He will never permit people to accept Him for something other than what He is.

He not just the miracle worker. He is not just the One that brings free food. He is not one who permits people to cherish their sin. He is not one who accepts half-hearted allegiance. He is not a political deliverer to deliver from the Romans. He is no an add-on to give us health and prosperity. Could He have made it any clearer from the text He cited in Isaiah? He came to deliver those who know they are blind and oppressed by offering spiritual healing and this spiritual healing will be available to all who would admit that and all people from all the nations.

You see, here is where the Jews had a problem. Not only did they think they were already right with God, but they also believed that the Messiah was for their nation alone.

So Jesus tells two Bible stories beginning in verse 25 (from 1 Kings 17). “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; 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.” In other words, God by-passed the self-righteous Jews and ministered to a Gentile.

And then another Bible story beginning in verse 27 (from 2 Kings 5), “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.” Once again, God bypassed the Jews to heal a Gentile.

So if I understand this correctly, they can accept the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, but they cannot accept the fact that God loves the Gentiles. And the Jews unless they humble themselves and acknowledge their spiritual bankruptcy and desperation, as did the example of these two Gentiles from the Bible, they will be judged standing on the outside looking in at Gentile conversions.

There is no entitlement here! Jesus is saying that divine grace might be withheld from Israel and given to the Gentiles. What a massive insult! Oh how quick their attitude toward Jesus changes when the truth is revealed.

Verses 28-29, “And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; 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.”

The Man who never sinned. The hometown hero. The Man whom they were prepared to crown the Messiah. It goes from highest reception to the ugliest rage in seeking His death.

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

It was not His time to die.

Brothers and sisters, what I have come to learn is that the world will not applaud our fruit of Christlikeness. I have come to learn that we can call ourselves a Christian and wrongly try to live our lives in such a way that the world approves. I have come to learn that we can talk to others about anything, except Jesus. I have come to learn that there are certain things that God wants us to say, but for the sake of man’s acceptance we simply choose to remain quiet. And I have come to learn that the world has false conceptions about God and it’s easy to say nothing, walk away and let them believe they are correct.

Some people may not want to hear that God has no favorites in that salvation is available to people from every ethnicity. Some people may not want to hear that God only receives those who acknowledge they have no good to achieve His favor, but must rely completely on His grace offered in Christ. And some people may not want to hear that God always speaks the truth in love and if we call ourselves His children He expects us to do the same regardless of how the world responds.