Luke 4:14-44

Discussion Questions

1. When Jesus taught in the synagogues, He displayed an intimate knowledge of and intentionality with the scriptures. In our own study of the scriptures, are we willing to put in the hard work of deep, devoted, disciplined study as we pray for the spirit to reveal God’s inspired, inerrant and infallible word to us?
2. Do we ever try to tame God by attempting to bend his will to our wishes? Do we consider him sovereign only when it suits us, or do we fully acknowledge God as our redeemer and the rightful ruler over all things? Are we resting in his ultimate power and peace?
3. What is our response to Jesus’ gift of salvation and healing? Are we living lives that overflow with joy and gratitude? What are some tangible ways to turn our gratitude into active service for the kingdom—to give feet to our faith?

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel, and we do have extra copies. If you didn’t bring one and you’d like one to follow along, this is a great week to have the text in front of you. So just raise up your hand if you’re here in the room and you would like one to follow along, and somebody will drop a paper copy of the Bible at your row, your aisle as well. The notes and quotes are available. If you want to just aim your phone and your camera at the QR code up on the screen there, and you can jump online and get those. We want to thank also those folks who joined us online last week as we’ve been studying the Gospel of Luke. We’re in Chapter 4 today.

We heard from folks last week from Farragut, Tennessee. Anybody know Farragut, Tennessee? It’s over near Knoxville. Okay, a couple of people. Little Rock, Arkansas. Anybody heard of Little… Yeah, come on, we got some of those. How about this one? Sanger, Texas. Anybody know Sanger, Texas? How about Denton, Texas? It’s near there. How about Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. That’s wonderful. And we heard from folks from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, so glad you could join us online for either worship service or Bible study or some of the podcasts that are available through The Village Chapel and our ministry.

After the baptism and temptation of Jesus, in our study of Luke here, we find Him now traveling into Galilee. That’s the northern third of Israel. And that’s up where the Sea of Galilee is. It’s also called the Sea of Tiberias and the Lake of Gennesaret. It has several names, but it’s going to be His hometown of Nazareth He comes to first. And while there, Jesus will make some rather audacious claims in the synagogue itself and the reception that Jesus got was not peaches and cream at all. As a matter of fact, it ended with Jesus being driven out of town. You’ll see that as we read in just a second, as some of the mob try to throw Him over a cliff.

Jesus evaded that and then traveled up to Capernaum. While teaching in the synagogue there on the Sabbath, He was interrupted by a demon-possessed man who made some startling accusations about Jesus. How did Jesus respond to all of this? I think this is so fascinating, and Luke has taken great care to show us the way different people respond to Jesus. We’ll read over and over again. He gives us these summary statements, and it’s unique to him among the gospels. He’s the one that does a lot of that, and he’s essentially a doctor. We know that from Colossians, Chapter 4. It’s like he’s just filling out the chart as he goes, “Patient exhibited this.” And so, he is summarizing what he reads. And we’ll read today of the reaction of some of the people. Instead of throwing Him over a cliff, they’re amazed and astonished by what they see in Jesus. So, we’ll take a look at all of that as we study today.

Luke chapter 4:14 through 44. And before we get going though, I’m going to break the chapter up like this. Jesus is going to be throughout Galilee, and in Galilee you have all these different cities. One is Nazareth. That’ll be our first section that we’ll look at, and the other is Capernaum. And I’ve visited both of these cities multiple times, and I’ve got a map here so you can kind of see up on the map. I think you can see the word “Galilee” there up in the orange area, and in white letters you see “Capernaum.” The blue kind of looks like maybe it’s a body of water there, right? Kind of a darker blue. You see it just to the right of Galilee and to the left of “Tetrarchy of Philip.” Well, that’s the Sea of Galilee right there. It’s about seven or eight miles across from east to west about maybe 15 miles north to south. It sits about 700 feet below sea level there in the northern part of Israel. It’s about 25 miles south of Mount Hermon, which is snow-capped most of the year.

So, sitting down deep in a well like it does, this warm water is often hit by the cold air that comes off the snow-capped Mount Hermon, and when it comes down and hits the sea of Galilee, that causes storms. We read about that as well in the gospels, don’t we? But I just want you to see where it is. If you look due south from the Sea of Galilee all the way to the bottom of the picture of the map there, you see Jericho and the blue water of the Dead Sea just peeking into the screen cap that I have right there. Here is the ancient ruins of the synagogue in Capernaum. We’re going to visit there today, and I want you to see this so that as we read the text, you’ll have a little more vivid experience. But this is one of our trips. You might even see somebody there in the picture that you recognize. We’ve had, let’s see, is it 4, 5, maybe 6 trips there? And so, some of these folks may look a little different, myself included as you look closely in the picture.

What’s cool about Capernaum and the ruins of the synagogue there is that you can probably see there’s a wall and then there’s a black layer of sort of a foundation, and then below that another color of foundation. Well, the upper layer of that foundation is dated to about the fourth century, but the bottom layer of that foundation is dated to the first century. In other words, the bottom layer of that foundation is dated to the time that Jesus actually walked the planet and went and taught in the synagogue in Capernaum. So, it’s not magic but it’s meaningful. It plants these gospel records in space-time history, in real geographic places, and when we read that today about Him being in the synagogue in Capernaum, you can picture and imagine it. It gets quite hot there without a roof at all. So, if you’re visiting the ruins, there’s no roof. And so, most of us huddled up against the wall when we had our Bible study there in the synagogue.

Let’s take a look at Luke 4:14 all the way to the end of the chapter. I’m going to read and make some commentary as we go. Before I do, let me just offer this prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for Your Word. As we’ve gathered to worship You today, we’re aware that someone in our fellowship may need to hear Your voice, Your call for them to respond and receive grace, mercy, forgiveness. So, if that’s the case, Lord, help them overcome their fear that You might not love them. Override their pride, resistance to You. And overpower any dark forces that seek to bind them and blind them from You. Holy Spirit, come and set our hearts and our voices free to learn to receive from You, to worship You as we sing in response to our Bible study today. All of this we pray in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.

“Jesus returned to Galilee,” verse 14 says, “in the power of the Spirit.” Now we’ve seen a lot of activity about the Holy Spirit. Luke has a little bit more of an emphasis on the Holy Spirit than we read in Matthew or Mark or John. Some of you may, if you want to, just if you need a little project while we’re doing this Bible study today, just circle or make numbers next to the number of times the Spirit is referred to either by “the Spirit” translated from “pneuma,” that Greek word, or by a personal pronoun. I’ll point those out along the way as we go. “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit; and news about Him [meaning Jesus] spread through all the surrounding district.”

Here’s one of Luke’s summary statements. He’s queuing up what he’s about to tell us, and he’ll summarize again in just a minute or two. He began, Jesus did, teaching in their synagogues. And their typical service would include prayer, reading from their Bible, which was the Old Testament scrolls, and some kind of teaching. So, He began teaching in their synagogue and was praised by all. In other words, they really entered in. They listened to Him. I would have loved to have been there and heard Him speak there in Nazareth, His hometown that He grew up in. “He came to Nazareth [verse 16] where He had been brought up.” If you’ve ever wondered where Jesus lived his childhood years, this is it. It’s not Tibet. This is what it tells us right here. He grew up in Nazareth. “…and as was His custom.” In other words, He was there a long time. This was the custom of His family. “He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath.” He did this all the time. “…and stood up to read.” And so here we have in verse 16, a summary statement of the childhood years of Jesus of Nazareth.

“The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book, and found the place where it was written…” And listen, I want you to know He’s looking for it. He’s intentional. It wasn’t just “Let’s play Bible roulette.” Some of you have done that, right? You just throw the book open, “Lord, I need to hear from you.” And you throw the book open, and it says, “And Judas went out and hung himself.” And you’re like, “What am I supposed to do with that?” But here He looked for and found a specific place. Why did He do that? Because He had some intention, some motive, something He wanted to do. And here’s what He looked for, found in a scroll. By the way, they didn’t have verse numbers and chapter breaks. And it’s not pages like this. It’s a scroll, and He is unrolling it. You got to see this to experience this. You just have to see it a little bit more.

And here’s what he reads. It’s from Isaiah, what we call Isaiah 61, and it says this, “The spirit of the Lord,” there’s the spirit again, “is upon me. Because He…” that’s a personal pronoun for the Spirit of the Lord. Doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a gender orientation, it’s just for us to understand the personal nature of the Holy Spirit, or God the Father for that matter, personal pronouns need to be used. “…because He [the Spirit of the Lord] has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.” “He,” again, the personal pronoun, “has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

Go back up just a little way there. This is Isaiah 61:1 and 2. I love that word “release” that’s there, “aphesis” in the Greek. It could also be translated “forgiveness.” It can be translated “liberty.” Some of your English translations probably say liberty. So, the Holy Spirit has sent Him to proclaim liberty to the captives, freedom, forgiveness, all of that. It’s just beautiful when you think of it. “Release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind. To set free those who are downtrodden.” You may be here this morning and downtrodden is all you relate to.

That’s okay. This is here for you as well and Jesus has come for you as well. You may be here this morning, and you consider your finances, and you’re looking like things are rather slim for you right now. Is it that kind of poor? Or is it like poor in Matthew, Chapter 5, 6 and 7, the Sermon on the Mount, where The Beatitudes begin like this: “Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'” Is it that – a spiritualized sort of version of poor and poverty? Or since it doesn’t say that here, just says “those who are poor,” that the Lord has come to preach the Gospel, the good news, to the poor?

And then Luke, Chapter 6, indeed we’ll get to Luke’s version, his recorded version of a sermon we call The Sermon on the Plain, but it’s similar to The Sermon on the Mount. But let me remind you, Jesus talked about some of these things more than once. I’ll do this sermon twice just today when Jesus traveled around for three years and went all through Galilee speaking in synagogues and all that sort of thing. Yeah, He taught the Lord’s Prayer. We have it right here and as it’s recorded in Matthew, Chapter 6. But if you think that’s the only time He talked about prayer, I think you’re mistaken. I think He talked about it tons of times and probably taught them how to pray tons of times. But when we get to Luke, Chapter 6, there’ll be yet another version, and Luke will say something about, “Blessed are the poor,” but he won’t say “in spirit.” So, is it spiritualized version of poverty or is it sociopolitical poverty? I don’t know why it has to be either or. Why can’t it be both and?

And I think Jesus is concerned about all of your life and all of my life, your needs, your daily needs, and as well your spiritual condition. And I think that’s really important for us to take note. So, Jesus has come with this good news for the poor. He has come to proclaim freedom, liberty, release, forgiveness. It could be translated in all of those different ways. And recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. The Old Testament used to have a year of Jubilee where people were set free in so many ways, and that’s essentially what He’s talking about here. And you can read about that if you’d like to over lunch in Leviticus, Chapter 25. Those of you that need something to do at lunch, you can do that. He closed the book, notice what happened, and He gave it back to the attendant, the one who had brought Him the scroll, And He sat down.

So, He stands to read; He sits down to teach. Traditional rabbinical method. He sits down now and “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him.” In other words, He just read a very important passage. They knew it was a Messianic passage, and now that He sits down, they’re interested in hearing what He has to say. And it’s pretty quiet. “And then he began to say to them [verse 21 says] Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Now the silence has gone to this really deep silence because that’s an incredibly bold claim to make by a Jewish person, of any time actually, to read Isaiah 61 and to say, “This is it. No, I am it. The Spirit of the Lord has sent Me.” In Isaiah 61, that’s the Messiah speaking prophetically. And so here He is saying that’s all about Him.

And when is it to be fulfilled? If people were reading the Old Testament wondering when it would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “It’s actually fulfilled right now. You just heard it fulfilled” is what Jesus is saying. That’s profound. I think we gloss over it a little bit too quickly. Verse 22, “All were speaking well of Him, and they were wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, ‘Is this not Joseph’s son?’” And so, over a few minutes time, there’s a bit of a crowd murmur. Some people are going, “That’s cool, that’s cool.” Some other people are going, “Hey, wait a minute, isn’t that Joey’s son?” And of course, we all know the answer to that question, it’s no. Legally maybe yes, but not biologically. We’ve already been told in Luke multiple times; this is the Son of God. And Luke was careful to include that so that when I read that I went, “No, He’s actually not Joseph’s son except for legally.” He’s actually the Son of God.

You can go back just to verse 22 of Chapter 3 and you’ll see that. So, Jesus says to them as they’re kind of processing what He has taught them. “No doubt you’ll quote this proverb to Me, ‘Physician heal yourself; whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’” In other words, here we are in your hometown. We’ve heard about some of the miracles you’ve performed in Capernaum. Some of the things you’ve said as you’ve traveled through Galilee and now you’ve settled here for this moment. We’re your hometown. We own you in a way, and we deserve to have all that you’ve been offering to all of those other people.

In Matthew and Mark’s version of this, it happens actually a few chapters deeper into those two gospel records. We’re told that Jesus didn’t work very many miracles there because of their lack of faith. They didn’t believe in Him. They didn’t trust in Him. They didn’t put their confidence in Him. Luke doesn’t spend too much time with that. He’s really trying to show us, I think this is a good example as Luke opens up Jesus’ public ministry for us. Luke has assembled this as part of the record of what happened as Jesus begins this public ministry. Some people are marveling at what Jesus says. Other people are not marveling. They’re starting to question. They’re starting to doubt. No, that couldn’t be. He owes us what he’s given to those other places as well. And now he says, “You’re going to quote this proverb to be, physician healed yourself. What was done to Capernaum do here in your hometown?” He said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his own hometown.”

They wanted tricks, man, a lot of them. They wanted some supernatural entertainment. We’re kind of that way now, aren’t we? People tend to flock to the guys that can swing their coat and wipe out half the room. We’re attracted to the people who pretend that they’re able to know things that they actually really don’t know. I’ve been in and around ministry for 24 years. I used to be involved in media ministry before I was involved in pastoral work, and before we were on the road as musicians, and I used to get behind the scenes at a lot of these really big ministries that had television shows and had mass huge crowds and all that sort of thing. And just seeing some of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, sometimes it disturbed me. I have got to be honest. Some of it seemed a bit manipulative.

Maybe you’ve sensed that as well. But here Jesus is saying that, “You’re rejecting Me because I’m a prophet and I grew up here, but your presumption about who I am and what I will do, your presumption that I should be on a leash that you control, that’s wrong, that’s incorrect.” I don’t know if you might think you have Jesus pegged or you might think you know the way He ought to perform in some particular situation or other. I’ve just got news for you. I mean, I’ve been walking the pilgrim way for a long, long, long time, but one thing I know is that we cannot tame this God. He will not be on the end of my leash. He won’t be on the end of your leash either.

No matter how many things I quote at Him or how loudly I quote them at Him, He’s a sovereign God as Kim prayed and as we so often sing. And the minute we want to take that away from Him, we do so at our own peril. We need a sovereign God – that deserves a Pentecostal amen. We need a sovereign God and there’s no such thing as partial sovereignty. There’s no such thing as He must do your bidding. That’s what these people in Nazareth wanted, but He was not there to do their bidding. Verse 25: “I say to you, in truth there were many widows in Israel…” He’s going to now go back to 1 Kings 17 and He’s going to go to 2 Kings 5 as well. To give them a couple examples of some material, some stories that they know. And he’s going to show them how God, Yahweh in the Old Testament, did some things that the people of Israel just would never have guessed, okay?

“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 [as Elijah had predicted because God told him to predict it] and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to [one in] Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.” Okay. What you need to know about that information that’s not in that verse is that means she was not a Jew. Do you understand? What Jesus is saying to these Jews in this particular synagogue in Nazareth is, “Oh no, Yahweh is reaching out to non-Jews and He’s going to do it again.”

Watch what He does next. Verse 27: “There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha.” That’s Elisha the prophet who was the protege of Elijah the prophet. And this is found in 2 Kings chapter 5.  “…and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman, the Syrian.” Again, a non-Jew, and this is the point that Jesus is making. And Naaman by the way, I want to point this out, was humble and obeyed what Elisha told him to do as well. He responded in some kind of faith. He was desperate. The widow in Zarephath was desperate and responded to Elijah’s prompting. And all the synagogue as they hear Jesus saying all of this stuff, they were filled, not with joy, not with wonder, but they were filled with rage as they heard these things. See they’re not excited about God’s favor being extended to non-Jews, to Gentiles might be another way to say it.

“They rose up and they cast 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.” Please don’t miss the physicality of this. There is dust. There are fists flying, there’s pushing, there’s shoving, there’s screaming, there’s yelling, there’s all kinds of cursing. And they’re lifting Jesus and they’re carrying Him to the precipice. And if you go to Israel, you can actually be there on Mount Precipice overlooking Nazareth. It’s a real place. You can imagine it happening and you can also imagine that the fall would mean death to you. That was what was on their hearts. They had a mob mentality, and they had murder on their minds. All because Jesus said, “Yahweh expressed grace to non-Jewish people, Gentile people.”

So, there’s this religious bigotry, this national bigotry, all of this racial bigotry that’s stored up in their hearts, these religious people in the synagogue. And they just get real angry at Jesus in the hometown of Nazareth, “But [verse 30 says] passing through their midst, He went His way.” I love to imagine what could be… I don’t know if this is miraculous. It doesn’t say it was miraculous… but I can imagine it being miraculous. Is that what happened? I don’t know. Did He kind of blind their eyes for a second, and he slid, shimmied on down through? Was that it or was everybody raging so much and mad? Maybe some other people that weren’t mad were pushing back trying to stop the fight. It happens all the time when there’s a fight. I don’t know. But Jesus escaped from here one way or the other. Whether it was miraculous or not, I do not know.

Capernaum. “He came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee.” Again, we’ve been there multiple times. I showed you the pictures. It’s on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. “He was teaching them on Sabbath days” and He’s in this synagogue. You’ll see “they were continually amazed at His teaching, for His message was with authority.” And that is in contrast, it’s said over and over again in the Gospels, in contrast to the teaching of the scribes, which are really just standing up and going, “Let me read you what the scroll says and here, isn’t God awesome? You should have a lot of joy in your life.”

No, the people are marveling at the pathos, a passion that Jesus has as He speaks what He says. And what He says has so much… It’s not just emotional, it’s authoritative. It sounds like He actually came up with all this stuff. And John will say “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” And he goes on to tell us in Chapter 1 of John’s Gospel that Jesus Himself is the Word incarnate. He’s the Word of God. And so, they’re all marveling at His teaching, verse 33. “There was a man there in the synagogue [as Jesus is preaching] possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, ‘What do we have to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth. Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God!’” It’s fascinating. You’ve got to think about that for just a second.

You got to think about this though. A lot of times when the demons speak in the gospel records, their Christology in theology is actually accurate. They recognize things that the religious people will not recognize. They should have recognized it, but they will not recognize it. So, the demons are not holy, not saved, but they at least acknowledge the truth. He’s the Son of God. Luke has told us that over and over again, and he makes sure to record that even the demons get it. And so, this demon-possessed man is saying all of that. Jesus rebuked him saying, “Be quiet and come out of him.” No coat swinging, no standing on the edge of the stage spitting into the audience. No drama for Jesus. He doesn’t need drama. He’s authoritative. He literally can say go to a stone in front of a tomb, and it has to go. He can literally say to a storm on the sea, hush, and it has to hush.

He’s a sovereign Son of God. “’Be quiet and come out of him.’ And when the demon had thrown him down their midst, he went out of him without doing him any harm. And amazement came upon them all.” Another summary statement, “…they began discussing with one another and saying, ‘What is this message?’ [Or “this word,” as some of your translations will say] For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.’ And the report of Him” verse 37 says, and the Greek word there could also be translated “the roar about Him.” It’s awesome. Remember, they don’t have any social media, so they’re not posting stuff up online or anything like that, but the roar about Him “was getting out into every locality in the surrounding district. And He rose and left the synagogue.”

So, He’s in a public place right there. He leaves that and now you’re going to see Him move from public to the personal kind of ministry. From a synagogue to a private home. Watch this, because Jesus is concerned about your home and my home. As much as He’s concerned about this chapel, He’s concerned about your home as well. “He rose and left synagogue and entered Simon’s home. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from high fever; and they made request of Him Jesus on her behalf. Standing over her, He rebuked the fever; and it left her.” In other words, with just a word, he said, “Fever, stop.” And it left her. “She immediately arose and began to wait on them.” Diakoneo is the Greek word too. She began to serve them, more than likely, a meal. So, in a home, a meal.

Let’s start thinking, if Jesus came to my house, Kim and I, we… Okay, ramen. All right. That’s what we’ll do. Because we do pretty good ramen at our house. That’s right. Now when Kim gets down into her fried rice thing, man, that I would be so proud to give to the Lord Jesus. What would you cook for the Lord Jesus? Her Mexican soup I would give to the Lord Jesus. That’s pretty good stuff, yeah. My grilled salmon, I would give to the Lord Jesus. What would you give to the Lord Jesus if He came to your house? And that perfect response of she’s healed, she’s sick, she’s paralyzed by this fever, and she gets up and her response is to serve. And I’m pretty sure that anytime some of us have been touched by the Lord in some way, the proper response, not only worship and thanksgiving, but serve Him. And she does. So, what would you serve? I don’t know.

Honestly, I’ve thought about what I’d do. What if I put him in the back of the car and we drove, did a drive-thru? What would Jesus want? We go to Taco Bell. “What do you want, Jesus? I’ll take your order. Jesus, what would you like?” He says, “I’ll take a burrito.” I go, “He’ll take a burrito, for Jesus.” She goes, “Jesus?” “Yeah, Jesus. He wants a burrito.” And she goes, “Supreme?” And I look back at Him and go, “What do you think?” And He goes, “What do you think?” But what would you serve Him? That’s so funny to think about that. Anyone who Jesus touches though, responds with service. I hope you’ve responded with service. Thanksgiving. Oh, please start there. Yes. Gratitude, yes, start there, but put your gratitude into action. I think that’s important for us as a community of faith.

Let’s finish up. “While the sun was setting…” that’s one of my favorite words, “all who had any sick with various diseases, brought them to Him, and laying His hands on every one of them, He was healing them.” The idea here, I mean if you could visualize this, is literally people are bringing people and laying them down in front of Jesus, person after person, after person. And every single one of them, He’s literally healing because they’ve come to Him for healing, and He is offering it. The demons though, were coming as well, and “coming out of many crying out and saying, ‘You are the Son of God.’” Like I said, their Christology is accurate even though they themselves don’t bow before Him. They resist Him.

He rebukes those demons. “He would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ” And so, He’s pacing His ministry. He doesn’t want there to be sort of a swarm of people who try to make Him king and try to solve their political problems using Jesus. Wonder if anybody’s doing that today? Please don’t do that. Let’s pray for our leaders no matter who they are, not worried about which personality they aren’t. I’m simply saying, pray for your leaders and then be good citizens here as you are of the kingdom of heaven.

They knew him to be the Christ, these demons did. “When day came, He departed and went to a lonely place.” And even Jesus is tired. He’s human. But “the multitudes were searching for Him, and came to Him, and tried to keep Him from going away from them. But He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.” And he doesn’t say, “I must preach merely how you can get your card punched so that you avoid hell.” No, “I must preach the kingdom of God.” See, the kingdom of God is a place where people recognize a king, the King, and it’s where all things are done to honor the king. Everything we do is done to honor the king. And so, He’s preaching the kingdom of God. It is much more than merely getting your card punched for Heaven.

And He goes to these other cities, and He was sent for this purpose. That’s what Jesus is telling us, His own self-understanding of His own mission and purpose. He kept on preaching throughout the synagogues of Judea. Now, that’s not Judah, the southern third of Israel, that’s Judea, which is the Roman name for the entire area including the Galilee. That part of the reading, I want to stop for just a couple of minutes and point out a few things for you. First of all, note Luke’s emphasis on the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus: conception, baptism, beginning of His public ministry, declaration of Old Testament fulfillment, and His joy in ministry. You’ll see that in Chapter 10 when we get there. The Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus in the Book of Luke is just a wonderful study. Great study for some of your home groups sometime if you’d like to do that or some of your men’s Bible studies or women’s Bible studies.

Notice the miracles of Jesus. We’ve said this before, I like to bring it up as we get to some of these first miracles of Jesus. They serve purposes that go way beyond merely sensationalism. They arouse curiosity about what? About Jesus. They display His power and authority over things like diseases, over demons, over death itself. He’s going to raise three other people besides Himself from the dead. And then over disasters. So, He’s got power and authority over disease, over demons, over death and over disasters. Well, if He’s the Son of God, you would think that He could do those kinds of things. But He also cares for people. And so, it reveals not only His power, but His compassion. And these miracles affirm His identity as well. If He is truly the Son of God, if He’s truly unique, not just one among many startup guys for a world religion, but no, no, no, no.

If He’s actually uniquely the Son of God as Luke has been telling us over and over again, if He really is unique in that way, you would think He could do some of these kinds of things. And so, when He does these kinds of things, it does affirm His identity. And of course, it inspires worship. And here we are 2,000 years later. And there some of them were, not all of them, but some of them were also bowing down, worshiping Him, thanking Him, being filled with wonder. Perhaps many of them that we’ll read about as we go through Luke, were on their way to faith, but not quite yet there, but maybe they arrive a little bit later.

When we do Bible study here, I want you to know our preaching team, works pretty hard together. We get together on Tuesday mornings or Tuesday afternoons. We go through the passage together and here are some of the questions that we like to ask about any and every passage we ever study here at the Village Chapel. You can do these. You can ask these same questions in your Bible study, in your home study, in your family’s Bible study, your family devotions. As you read the passage ask: What does God reveal about Himself in this passage? It’s a good thing to ask. How are humanity’s vulnerabilities and needs exposed in this passage? How is the Gospel reflected in this passage? That is that we are more sinful than we could ever imagine, but God is going to blow our minds because He’s more loving than we could possibly imagine.

That’s just good news. That’s what the Gospel is. How is that reflected in each passage or set up or how does it point to Jesus who’s at the center of the Gospel? And number four, of course: What faith response is called for in this passage? As for this particular passage, Luke’s research reveals that Jesus, if we’re trying to figure out what do we learn about God’s nature here, we see that He underscores over and over again that Jesus is the Son of God, uniquely so. Well, aren’t all of us God’s children? That’s true in a very general kind of way, but in a very specific unique… “suigeneris” is the word. He’s one of a kind. There’s nobody else like Him. He’s God the Son, and that’s amazing. And Luke hammers at home over and over and over again.

Luke was the only Gentile writer of a New Testament book or of any book of the Bible as far as I know anyway. He wants us to know that Jesus is not only the savior to the Jews that’s offered to the Jews, but He’s brought God’s salvation to the whole world, and it’s so proper for a Gentile doctor, historian and theologian. He’s got all of that in him. I love that he’s a good writer too. And he wants all of us to know that no matter who you are, no matter what zip code you live in, no matter where you’re from, no matter what nonsense or foolishness you’ve been involved in, the good news of the Gospel is on its way to you. And if you’re hearing it at all, it is surely a sign God is calling to you. The question is how will you respond? But Luke is living proof that the good news of the Gospel is for the world and not just one particular group of people.

In Luke 4:14 through 44, we notice the audacious assertion of Jesus in verses 14 to 21. He literally says, “I’m the fulfillment of this Isaiah 61 passage. That is so outrageous. In a sense, if you just try to get thinking about how first century Jews and how sacred all of that would be to them, in a sense you understand how that really sets them off a little bit. And yet at the same time as we read through Luke, we’ll see, “Hey, listen, God trying through Christ and through the disciples in their preaching as well to communicate to these first century Jews.” Jesus really is the Messiah. He really is the fulfillment of God’s promises, and they just need to believe this. They need to open their hearts and believe this. So, there’s an audacious assertion by Jesus, and others have made that assertion, but their lives didn’t back it up. They weren’t able to raise dead people or quiet storms like Jesus did. They didn’t open their eyes of the blind or the deaf, open the ears of the deaf. They didn’t have lame people stand up and all of a sudden be able to walk who had never walked before in their entire lives. And Messiah was prophesied to do these kinds of things.

So, it’s audacious for Him to assert this, especially if it isn’t true, and it’s also audacious, even though it is true. In other words, it’s bold of Him to do this. It’s really bold. The eager reception of the multitudes, I’ve listed the verses that are there. And you see this, the multitudes constantly are the ones that are starting to get it. And man, the experts in religion they’re having trouble with it. They’re not quite ready to give up their power, their popularity, their expertness. They’re not ready to humble themselves quite yet. But the crowds, yes, they seem to get it.

The angry rejection of the religious experts, yeah. There they are. And they literally drag him to the side of the hill. They’re so mad at what He said, they drag Him to the side of the hill. They want to throw Him over the cliff just because they didn’t like what He said. And let me go on record: I prefer the angry occasional email to you dragging me out to some cliff or something like that. Send me your email. I know where the delete button is. That’s not a problem for me at all. Send me your email. I’ll try to respond, but if I just think you’re completely insane, I’m just going to delete your email. I just want you to know that in advance. Love you a bunch but got to be honest about that. But I’ll take that much more so.

And these guys have murder on their minds, and that’s so ironic because they’re supposed to be the religious people. George Whitefield said,

“If you’re going to walk with Jesus, you’re going to be opposed. In our days to be…”

This is Whitefield saying this, which is I think pretty funny in his day, in his day him saying that, which would be 18th century. He said,

“…in our days to be a true Christian and is really to become a scandal.”
George Whitefield

It’s a scandal. Why? Because I’m literally standing up here, an imperfect man who needs not another religious rule to follow, who needs not another example to follow. I need grace. I’m a sinner. I need grace. I need undeserved favor. I’m guilty. I need unmerited favor. And great news people, it’s on offer for you, just like it’s on offer for me. Just like He came and put it on offer for all of those people as well. He’s beautiful and He’s our Savior.

And so, the last point would be the selfless, faithful ministry of our Savior. Throughout all of this, Jesus did not just come to sympathize with our pain. He comes to break our chains. He’s not merely a teacher offering wisdom; He’s a Savior offering freedom. That’s why it was so important that we see what that release for the captives, forgiveness for the sinners, freedom for the slaves. All from that Isaiah 61 passage. It’s so important. How will you respond then today to Jesus? How will you respond? Just for a second? Think about that.

I’ve been here, I’ve been a Christian a long, long time. I’ve been doing this for a while. Don’t ever get to the place where you think you got Jesus pegged like the people Nazareth did. He’s from here. Nothing good can ever come from here or He’s from here. I demand that He gives me this. Don’t go to either of those extremes. Place yourself before Him. Understand there’s nothing you can do to run far enough away from Him that you’ll escape the reach of His grace. So, if you’re here today and you’re just wallowing in guilt and shame, I just want you to know you can’t outrun his grace. And it’s on offer to you today.

All you need to do is turn around, face Him. Turn away from your sin. That’s what repentance is. Repentance is you’re going this way, and you literally do an about-face. You take that one step, and He will come running to you and restore you, renew you, refresh you, and redeem you. And that’s so important. How will you respond to Him today in the whole history of the world? Tim Keller said,

“There’s only one person who not only claimed to be God Himself, but also got enormous numbers of people that believe it. Only Jesus combines claims of divinity with the most beautiful life of humanity.”
Tim Keller, Making Sense of God

Here He is. He’s powerful, yes, but please don’t miss that He’s beautiful. And I mean that in the richest sense of the word. This is our King and He’s a beautiful, majestic king.

And because of His beauty, because of His majesty, because of His grace, just lavished all over me and all over you, let’s turn to Him. Let’s bow before Him. Let’s give our lives to Him for His glory and for the good of our neighbors, for the peace that we so long to find in our own lives, in our own hearts and minds. I talk to people all the time like myself, they have trouble sleeping once in a while. And those are the times. It happened to be last night. Actually, a little bit of a moment where there was like, “Eh, not quite asleep.” But those are the times that I just turn to Him, turn away from my worries, turn to Him, tell my mind what to think about, tell my heart what to be concentrating on. And it’s either worship or praying for you or praying for others that I love.

It’s funny how all of a sudden, the minions of hell decide they’re not going to bother me anymore when I’m focused on Him. And when I use whatever they throw at me to focus more on Him, they get tired. They kind of get exhausted. They see it as a waste of their time.

“Human beings do not readily admit desperation, but when they do, the kingdom of heaven draws near.”
Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew

So here we are, this guy in the synagogue in Capernaum, and there’s humanity there. You see, this demon possessed, that’s true. The demon is getting him to scream and torturing him in every way, pushed his humanity so far back.

But somehow or another there he is in their version of church, and he stands up and recognizes who Christ is. And the Lord Jesus doesn’t say, “Hey, bouncers, carry that guy out. Drag him out.” No, the Lord Jesus sets him free right then and there with just the power of His word. And He can do that. And He’s tender, He’s loving, He’s compassionate toward this man. And maybe for the first time in a long time, this man is a human being again. And most of the people that know him probably can’t believe the change because he’s just like Peter’s mother-in-law. When you’re touched by Jesus, by God in some way, the response that we offer, of course, is to give thanks, to serve, to become more and more God’s people.

CS Lewis described conversion this way. It’s really beautiful.

“This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We’re the statues. There’s a rumor going around in the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

So, Village Chapel, let’s come to life today, tomorrow, and again the next day, and all through the week. Let’s come to life. And where do we find that? In Jesus. We sang Come Unto Jesus. He’s the way, He’s the truth, and He’s the life.

If you need a little bit more of an understanding of what the real way is for your life, the right way is for your life. If you need a little more understanding of what’s true, what’s right, maybe you’re struggling with what’s right and what’s wrong, you need to come to Jesus, because He’s the way, the truth, and He’s also the life. This existential experience that I have had, that many of us in this room have had, is where we want to move from just, “Oh yeah, I believe in the existence of God,” to actually “Now my life is in Him.”

I’ve been crucified with Christ, but it’s no longer me that’s alive anymore. It’s Christ living in me that’s alive. And so, I’m in Christ. I think we said it a couple of weeks ago. The word Christian is only mentioned three times in the entire New Testament, and yet we call ourselves Christians all the time. But the two-word phrase, “in Christ” and with a pronoun “in Him,” is found almost 200 times. That’s how we need to be thinking about ourselves over and over again. My life is in Christ, and it’s in Him that I want to live today and find my being and find true north. And whatever it is I’m longing for; I will go to Him to find. Let’s pray:

Lord, thank You for Your Word! We are grateful for these short stories about what happened when You walked the planet, Jesus. How kind, how generous You were to so many! Thank You, Lord, for not just unfolding another long scroll of rules to follow but calling us to Yourself. Yes, asking us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and to actually follow You. But thank You for Your grace at work in our lives. Lord, when we falter, when we fall, when we stumble, You’re so kind. You’re so gracious. You’re so eager even for us to simply look to You to rise again and begin following You from wherever it is we fell. So, I pray for my brothers and sisters in this room. I pray for my brothers and sisters around the world worshiping with us today via the internet. Speak to us, each of us, wherever we are at in our journey, in our life, and call us to Yourself, Jesus, that we might find life in Your name. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Your name. Amen and amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs:

“Come Thou Almighty King“ by Felice de Giardini, Tommy Bailey, Sarah Gehri, Nathan Mickle & Tom Yarbrough
“Revive Us Again“ by John Jenkins Husband and William Paton MacKay
 “Come Unto Jesus“ by Jordan Kauflin, Keith & Kristyn Getty, and Laura Story
“Jesus Only Jesus“ by Christy Nockels, Nathan Nockels, Matt Redman, Kristian Stanfill…
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois

All songs are used by Permission. CCLI License #200369

Call To Worship: Come Let Us Worship

Come, let us worship God the Father, the maker of heaven and earth!Let us worship Jesus Christ,  the resurrected King of Kings and Lord of Lords! Let us worship the Holy Spirit, the promised comforter and counselor! All glory and praise be to the one true God, now and forevermore, amen!

Confession: Jesus, The Son of God

Leader: Why is the Son of God called “Jesus,” meaning “savior”?
People: Because he saves us from our sins; and because salvation is not to be sought or found in anyone else.

Leader: Why is he called “Christ,” meaning “anointed”?
People: Because he has been ordained by God the Father and has been anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief prophet and teacher who fully reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our deliverance; our only high priest who has delivered us by the one sacrifice of his body, and who continually intercedes for us before the Father; and our eternal king who governs us by his Word and Spirit, and who guards us and keeps us in the deliverance he has won for us.

Heidelberg Catechism, Questions 29, 31

Classic Prayer: George Matheson, 1842-1906

Dear Lord, I thank Thee that Thy love constraineth me. I thank Thee that, in the great labyrinth of life, Thou waitest not for my consent to lead me. I thank Thee that Thou leadest me by a way which I know not, by a way which is above the level of my own poor understanding. I thank Thee that Thou art not repelled by my bitterness, that Thou art not turned aside by the heat of my spirit. There is no force in this universe so glorious as the force of Thy love; it compels me to come in.

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