- [Kevin DeYoung] Thank you to
my brother, David, he's a kind, humble man for his introduction. Yes, last I checked,
just eight children. Said I love my eight children,
I do, though not always at the same time and sort of that's why
you have eight. We have been well fed already in
these days together. I said to H.B. after he got done
preaching, I said, "I would gladly yield my time for you to
keep going and keep preaching, it's such a wonderful,
powerful word." And last night as Ligon was
preaching and as he was dipping into my text and stealing all of
my dumb and dumber material, I just thought, "Lig,
save something for me." He did, and we are going to turn
our attention now to Luke 4 and I will read verses
16 through 30, just slightly different than
the verses advertised. Luke 4, beginning
at verse 16. "And he came to Nazareth where
he had been brought up, and as was his custom,
he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to
read and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found
the place where it was written, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because He has anointed me to proclaim good news
to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the
blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim
the year of the Lord's favor.' And he rolled up the scroll and
gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all
in the synagogue were fixed on him and he began to say to
them, 'Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'
And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words
that were coming from his mouth and they said, 'Is not this
Joseph´s son?' And he said to them, 'Doubtless,
you will quote to me this proverb, "Physician,
heal yourself. What we have heard you did at
Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well."' And he said,
'Truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his
hometown but in truth, I tell you, there were many
widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens were
shut up three years and six months and a great famine came
over all the land and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to
Zarephath in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow and
there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet
Elisha and none of them was cleansed but only Naaman the
Syrian.' When they heard these things, all in the
synagogue were filled with wrath and they rose up and drove him
out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which
their town was built, so that they could throw him down the
cliff, but passing through their midst,
he went away." This scene in Nazareth
represents the first close-up picture of Jesus'
public ministry. Just to remind you where we are
in Luke's Gospel, you know in Chapters 1 and 2,
we have the prediction of Jesus' birth, his miraculous
conception, the incarnation and his boyhood, and then we move in
Chapter 3, John the Baptist comes on the scene
and prepares the way. And then if you look in Chapter
3 verse 23, we have the beginning of his ministry when
he was about 30 years of age. And uniquely, for Luke,
he goes from that initial declaration of Jesus' public
ministry immediately into a genealogy which traces Jesus
back to the son of Seth, the son of Adam,
the Son of God. Why? Well, because he moves in then,
in Chapter 4, to show that this Jesus, the son of Adam,
is now going to be successful in the very venture in which
Adam failed, namely, being tempted by the devil. So, certainly, there is a
connection between the genealogy in Chapter 3 at the beginning of
his public ministry, why is that there? To lead the way into Chapter 4,
to show that this new son of Adam is going to succeed
where Adam failed. Incidentally, if you see verse 7 there in
Chapter 4, "If you then will worship me, it will all be
yours," that temptation from the devil. I remember a few years ago,
seeing on a very nice church website, they had a very
nice-looking banner over their church's website and it had that
verse 7, failed to mention that it was from the devil and not
from the Lord. So, just make sure your digital
marketing folks are in line with your biblical theological
folks so you don't let the devil give your mission statement. So we know from Chapter 3:23,
Jesus has already been involved in public ministry. In verse 14 of Chapter 4,
we read that he returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee. So there has already been a
public ministry in Galilee and we read in verse 23 that, "What
you did in Capernaum, did here in your hometown as well." So there's already a ministry
that Luke has not gone into detail with in Capernaum
and in Galilee, but rather he chooses, when we come to
verse 16, to highlight as the beginning of Jesus' public
ministry, in close detail, this first day in Nazareth. Unlike Matthew and Mark,
Luke does not begin with the scene in detail in Capernaum
but rather in his hometown. This is a paradigmatic first day
of ministry meant to show us the sort of things that Jesus would
be doing and the sort of ministry he would undertake. I want you to notice three
things in this paradigmatic ministry in Nazareth. Number one, what Jesus
came to do. Number two, whom he
came to reach. Number three, how he
would be received. So we will walk through each of
those three points and then we will finish more briefly with
three lessons from these verses as it relates in particular
to evangelism. So first then, notice what he
came to do. He came to do, in these verses,
two things: to fulfill prophecy and to proclaim the gospel. So we see that he came to
fulfill prophecy, we don't know exactly what the synagogue
service would have looked like in the early part of the
first century but we know that there would have been a reading
from the Torah, there would have been a reading from the
prophets, and then any qualified male in the audience could give
instruction on one of those passages. Jesus, we read, stood up
to read the passage. We read later that it was his
custom to do so. Much as later in Acts when Paul
will go into a new town and there are Jews there,
he will begin his ministry by teaching in the synagogue. There was an open door given the
way that the services unfolded and so Jesus is there and he
indicates that he will volunteer. They give to him the scroll from
the prophet Isaiah, verse 17. So that was chosen for him but
then we read, "He unrolled it and found the place
where it was written." So, he, in particular,
given Isaiah, wants to read from this text in Isaiah 61. Turn back in your Bible,
keep a finger in Luke 4 but to see the context here for
this passage from Isaiah 61. "The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring
good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
the opening of the prison to those who are bound,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And then notice in Isaiah's
passage, it reads, "And the day of vengeance of our God," and
Jesus leaves out that portion, not because he's playing fast
and loose with Scripture and not because there isn't an element
of judgment in Jesus' ministry, but because the accent in Jesus
being sent by the Father was not one of condemnation,
John 3, but rather sent into the world that he might be
the means of salvation. And so the note to be sounded...
in distinction to the message of John the Baptist,
the note to be sounded is one of good news,
of salvation, of comfort. "To comfort all those who
mourn," Isaiah continues, "To grant to those who
mourn in Zion." I will refrain from mentioning
anything about Michigan States victory over Duke at this point. "To grant to those who mourn in
Zion, to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garments of
praise instead of a faint spirit, that they may be
called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He
may be glorified." In other words, this figure of
Isaiah 61 brings a message of deliverance to exiles. He brings a message of
deliverance to exiles, and Jesus, knowing this passage,
seeking it out in particular, and understanding that those in
the audience would too understand where he was going,
that this was one of their messianic prophecies,
part of their expectation of the one who was to come,
who would remove, for the exiles, all
that was sadness and gloom and would give to them comfort
and hope and good news. And Jesus has the audacity to
say, "Today, this is fulfilled in your hearing." I mean, you want to talk about
the ultimate mic drop, there it is. Fulfilled. Now, we think, well,
that's what Jesus does, that's who he is. Of course, he's Jesus,
but you have to remember there, they hear things about him,
they've maybe heard of some miracles and he's spoken well to
them but this is still a man that they know.
We'll get to that later. This is one who grew up with
them in their hometown. Jesus was a common name. Scholars have looked at ancient
artifacts and ossuaries and receipts and the like and have
determined that Jesus was probably one of the top five or
six most popular male names in 1st-century Judaism. It didn't have an aura about it. This is…Mike has a word for us,
come on up, Mike. Mike's going to read
from Isaiah. Mike reads from it and he says,
"This is about me." Well, that's a bit audacious. He has the audacity to say this
passage is not simply about one who is to come but is about the
one standing here in front of you. Jesus never thought of himself
as merely a pointer but as centrally the point. I am the Messianic one. I am the servant that
Isaiah foretold. I am the one to bring this
message of deliverance to the exiles. So he comes to fulfill
this prophecy. He comes also
to proclaim good news. Now, no doubt, this text is one
that gives us an indication of what Jesus' mission and
ministry were about. I have often heard over the
years and, in particular, I think about the denomination I
was previously a part of, people would often say,
"Look to Luke 4, his ministry in Nazareth." There we see the very heartbeat
of Jesus' ministry and it's true,
it's wonderfully true. And then I would often have
people say to me and what we see there is Jesus' ministry was one
to focus upon the poor and the oppressed and the downtrodden,
to bring God's creation back to shalom and to transform
social structures. This is a key text for Gustavo
Gutierrez and others in the tradition of liberation
theology, and just because it's a key text for some that we
disagree with, doesn't mean it ought not be a key text for us,
but it does mean that we must not settle, when we do our
interpretation of this text or any text, for general themes to
override specific exegesis. So what does it mean that Jesus
identifies his ministry with the aims of Isaiah 61? One author argues that in Luke,
the gospel is, "Of revolutionary consequence,
socially, economically, and politically here and now." Well, there's certainly a way in
which that is true but how is that true? Another book says that from
Luke 4, we see that Christ's mission is, "To extend the
kingdom by infiltrating all segments of society with
preference given to the poor and allowing no dichotomy between
evangelism and social transformation," and that is
often how this passage is understood and often how it has
been explained to me over the years, and I want to
suggest to you that it is not the most careful way
to exegete this passage. Would you notice, look at the
verbs that are used in this declaration from Isaiah 61,
there are 4 verbal infinitives. You have got lisasthai,
you can have Dr. Carson clean that up later. Keryxai, aposteilai, and
then, a fourth time, keryxai. You recognize the word there,
it's a verbal form of to evangelize, that is
to announce the good news, and then keryxai,
a keryx was a herald, that is to preach, and then
apostelai meaning to set free or to loose. These are the four verbs,
you don't have to know any Greek to see these verbal infinitives
in the English. And notice the verbs. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me, He has anointed me," to do what? Number one, to proclaim good
news to the poor. He has sent me to, number two,
proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight
to the blind. Number three, to set at liberty
those who are oppressed, and number four, to proclaim the
year of the Lord's favor. Three of those four verbal
infinitives, and we'll come back to the odd one out in just a
moment, are verbs of proclamation. So, yes, this is a key text for
defining Jesus' mission and the methods of his ministry,
but what do we see here? We see that the Spirit has
anointed him chiefly to be a preacher to proclaim
a message of good news. I had mentioned that
one of those four verbs is not a verb of proclamation
and it's there at the end of verse 18,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed. Well, it's certainly true that
Jesus healed the sick and gave sight to the blind as pointers
to his deity, as ministry of compassion, as signs of the
kingdoms in breaking, this messianic mission statement
in Luke 4 highlights the announcement of good news. If Luke 4 sets the tone for
Jesus' mission and indeed the mission of the church,
then the very center of the church's mission should focus
upon the announcement and the proclamation of good news. Jesus did bring sight
to the blind. He did help those oppressed by
demons, but, this is where it's interesting, there is no
record of him setting literal prisoners free. Remember I mentioned that one of
these four verbs is not a proclamation verb, to set at
liberty those who are oppressed, but curiously, this is the one
of these things he didn't literally do. He did bring sight to the blind. He did set at liberty those who
are oppressed if we understand it spiritually, those who are
oppressed, but if we are thinking that this is to be
taken literally as setting literal prisoners behind literal
bars free, it's the one thing here that Jesus didn't do, which
gives you some insight into John the Baptist's confusion. Again, turn back to
Luke 3:20, it's speaking of Herod the Tetrarch, who had
been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother's
wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done,
added this to them all, that he locked
up John in prison. So John the Baptist is in
prison, he is a literal captive waiting to be set free. Isn't that what
Isaiah 61 foretold? That's what the
Messiah would do. Well, it helps you understand
what we find in Luke 7, go to Chapter 7 verse 18,
"The disciples of John reported all these things to
him and John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to
the Lord saying, 'Are you the one who is to come or shall we
look for another?' And when the men had come to him, they said,
'John the Baptist has sent us to you saying, "Are you the one
who is to come or shall we look for another?"' In that hour,
He healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil
spirits and on many who were blind, he bestowed sight
and he answered them, 'Go and tell John what you have
seen and heard, the blind receive their sight,
the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached
to them, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me.'"
And John was still in prison. "The Spirit is upon me," Jesus
says, "Anointing me to proclaim good news to the poor." We'll
say more about what the poor means in just a moment,
but here, we see strong hints that the language of Isaiah 61
that Jesus adopts is, on one level, the literal returning of
sight to the blind and the literal freeing of demons for
those who were oppressed, but it was not, in the case of
John the Baptist, the literal release of prisoners. We are, in other words, to
understand that whatever Jesus might have done as a ministry of
compassion and in order to speak to his own identity,
that the activities foretold here in Isaiah were, first and
foremost, on a spiritual plane, that the recovery of sight to
the blind was spiritual sight for those blinded by sin,
those who would have demons cast out was ultimately a pointer to
the spiritual freedom that we find only in Christ. In other words, we see that the
mission of Jesus was first and foremost, one, to proclaim the
good news of the gospel of salvation for sinners. Now, if you go back to
Luke 4, you notice in the two sections that follow,
you can just see by the headings, Jesus Heals a
Man with an Unclean Demon, and then the next section,
Jesus Heals Many of Various Diseases. If you look in Matthew, Mark,
and Luke, for Jesus' ministry, you find him chiefly doing these
three things: preaching, casting out demons,
healing the sick. That's the three-pronged attack
of Jesus' ministry and yet they are not all of equal ultimacy. One clearly has priority
for Jesus. Do not miss this fact. There is not a single example of
Jesus going into a town with the purpose of healing or
casting out demons. He never ventures out on a
healing or an exorcism tour. He certainly does a lot of both
along the way. He is moved with pity at human
need but the reason he came out in public ministry
was to preach. Look at the
end of Luke 4:42. He's been healing all night and,
"When it was day, he departed and went out into a desolate place
and the people sought him and came to him and would have kept
him from leaving them but he said to them, 'I must preach the
good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well for I
was sent for this purpose,' and he was preaching in the
synagogues of Judea." If ever there was a temptation
to let something else override the centrality of the preaching
of God's word, it was this, Jesus is 100% effective
in this ministry. People are coming to him,
people with real needs, real hurts, real physical pain
and he can heal them with a touch, with a word,
with a look, with an anointing. Jesus, just stay another day. There's a long line,
think of all the people that you could do this good for,
all the people that you could heal, all the compassion
you could sow. And Jesus says, "That is not
the reason I came out in public ministry." Yes, he does it.
He does it gladly. He does it out of love. He does it to point to his own
identity and yet it was not his purpose. That's why in Mark's Gospel,
he frequently commanded silence of those he helped and why in
the passage in Mark 6 when he comes to Nazareth,
we read that he could not do many works in that town because
it was filled with unbelief, not meaning that they robbed
Jesus of some spiritual mojo, but rather, this was not the
point I came here. I did not come to put on a show. I am not in town to
set up a healing clinic. In Luke, there are plenty of
miracles and acts of service to celebrate but they are not
the main point. Luke 19:10, "Jesus came to seek
and to save the lost." The focus of his ministry is on
teaching, the heart of his teaching centers on who he is
and the good news of who he is culminates in where he is going,
that is the cross. So the mission of Jesus is not
liberation broadly conceived but rather the proclamation of
the gospel through teaching, the corroboration of the gospel
through signs and wonders, and the accomplishment of the
gospel in death and resurrection. That's what Jesus came to do in
this first paradigmatic day of ministry in Nazareth,
to fulfill prophecy and to preach good news. Second, I want you to see whom
he came to reach, whom he came to reach. He came to reach the poor. Verse 18, to proclaim
good news to the poor. We have the imagery of the year
of Jubilee from Leviticus, proclaiming the year of the
Lord's favor to those who are in bondage or debts. The Greek word, ptochos,
in verse 18, is not without some reference to material poverty. There's a reason that the
Gospels use the language of the poor to indicate spiritual
receptivity rather than the rich because it is with the poor and
more often so with material poverty that there is an
accompanying spiritual receptivity, and yet,
we would be wrong to think that ptochos in this passage
is mainly an economic term. If the poor are the literal
material poor, then it would stand to reason that the
captives and the blind and the oppressed should also be taken
exclusively literally, and yet there is no instance, as
we've seen in the Gospels, of Jesus setting a literal
prisoner free. Quite naturally then,
we understand captivity and oppression to include
spiritual bondage. It is not inappropriate then to
see a fundamental spiritual aspect to this word poor. It means something like the
humble poor, the spiritually broken. Think about it, how could Jesus
say, "Today, this is fulfilled in your hearing," unless at the
heart of what Jesus was communicating was a message of
good news for sinners, that had been fulfilled
in that moment. The transformation of social
structures had not been completed in that moment. Context is key, right? When we're trying to exegete a
passage, and here the context indicates for us that the poor
to whom Jesus preached were not exclusively the materially poor
but rather something like the spiritually brokenhearted,
those who recognized their weakness. Why do we know that? Because of the two examples that
Jesus gives of the poor in this passage. One is the widow of Zarephath. She was materially poor. If we had time, we could go read
of that story in 1 Kings 17. She is described as being in a
position of absolute destitute poverty. You could not find someone who
was lower on the social ladder and in more dire economic
straits, she was a widow. There was a drought.
She has only a handful of flour
and a little oil. She has a child to care for by
herself and so she says she's going to prepare one last meal
so my son and I can eat and die. It is a picture of absolute
material destitution. Of course you know that Elijah
says the jar of flour will not be spent, the jug of oil will
not run out, and a miracle is worked and she is provided for. That's one example of the poor
to whom the good news reached, but the second example is
Naaman, the Syrian general. If we had time, we could go to
read that story in 2 Kings 5, and it is, in some ways,
almost the opposite. If she was at the very bottom of
the social ladder, absolute material destitution,
the description of Naaman the general is of one who is at
nearly the top of the social ladder and is much wealthier
than his peers. The description in 2 Kings 5,
he is a commander of the army of the king of Syria. He's called a "great man." He is highly favored by the king
because he had just been victorious in battle. He is called a
mighty man of valor. He has the king himself seeking
out his healing and the king sends a letter and accompanying
the letter are 10 talents of silver, 6000 shekels of gold,
10 changes of clothing. When Naaman finally shows up on
the doorstep of Elisha, he shows up there with horses
and with chariots. In other words, this is
a man of great wealth. And Jesus uses both as a
description of the poor. Why? Because the widow knew her need
and Naaman, despite all of his material wealth, also knew his
need, humbling himself by dipping seven times into the
meager Jordan River. So if these are the examples of
good news for the poor, the poor has more to do with
the poverty of spirit than strictly with
material destitution. Andreas Köstenberger and
Peter O'Brien writes in their book, <i>Salvation to the
Ends of the Earth</i>, "The poor to whom the good news is
announced are not to be understood narrowly of the
economically destitute as most recent scholars have suggested. Rather, the term refers more
generally to the dispossessed, the excluded, who are forced to
depend upon God." Luke is in many ways an
evangelist to the rich. We think of Luke as having some
of the harshest language toward the rich and he does. From the very beginning of his
gospel with Mary's Magnificat, it's a depiction of a great
reversal where those who have a lot in this life will be left
out in the next and those who are on the underside in this
life will be greatly rewarded in the next. "Woe to the rich," Jesus says,
the Sermon on the Plain. Luke, of course, records some
unique episodes that the other Gospel writers don't,
like the rich man and Lazarus, like the rich fool
in Luke 10 or 12. And then into Acts, the story,
"May your silver perish with you," when Simon wants to
buy the gifts of God, so Luke has some of the
harshest things to say about the rich and yet have
you noticed that Luke also contains more rich people
getting it than any other gospel writer? He goes out of his way to talk
about the women, the wealthy women who supported Jesus
out of their means. He mentions Joseph of Arimathea,
a wealthy man who took Jesus from the cross and buried him. We read about the shrewd manager
who uses even worldly mammon for gospel good. We read in chapter of Acts,
Barnabas, the son of encouragement who was also a
well-to-do man sold a field and gave the proceeds and
laid it at the apostles' feet. Luke, in other words, remember,
is writing for Theophilus, most excellent Theophilus,
probably some sort of high-ranking Roman magistrate
or official and he wants to issue a warning to people
like him, people like most of us. Here's how you can get it
dreadfully wrong and here's how you can get it right. The poor are often the
economically poor because God tends to use material hardship
more than material plenty to cultivate spiritual
sensitivity in the desperation that gives ears to
hear God's voice. There's a reason Jesus says
blessed are the poor instead of blessed are the rich. The poor are more apt to see
their need for help than the rich, but this word
ptochos in Luke 4 refers to all those who are open to God,
responsive to God, who see their dependence upon God. It is to these that Jesus
proclaims the year of the Lord's favor. So, Jesus' mission laid out in
Luke 4 was not first of all a mission of structural change or
transformation but a mission to announce the good news of his
saving power and his merciful reign to all those who are
brokenhearted enough to believe. So then, finally, how
would he be received? Nazareth was a little town of
500 people, 25 miles southwest of Capernaum. It's his hometown and he returns
there and they recognize his wisdom. They recognize he's done mighty
works, no one can deny those facts, but what they can't
figure out is how this man, this Jesus from this small
little town could speak like he did. So you notice the question that
they ask immediately after declaring in verse 22 that
they spoke well of him, we read at the end of that verse
that they said also, "Is not this Joseph's son?" So, wow, that's
a really good speech. Isn't that Tom's boy? Gracious words, good speaker,
a bit audacious. Stay in your lane, bro. The folks in Nazareth had a hard
time accepting that this man who grew up among them, who pounded
nails for them, ate meals with them, attended synagogue
with them, looked just like one of them, could ultimately be
something beyond any of them. They were too familiar with
Jesus to be overly impressed with him. This is Mary's son, a carpenter,
a boy who grew up with us. Joseph's son. It was a familiar saying,
"A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown," or we
might have the aphorism, "Familiarity breeds contempt,"
or maybe we could tweak it to say, "Familiarity
breeds unbelief." Sometimes, the closer you are to
Jesus, the harder it is to really see him for who he is. Years ago when I had to…was
applying to get into college and you had to take some basic
medical tests and they did one of those tuberculosis skin tests
and lo and behold, it turned up positive. No, I'm okay. It turned up positive and some
of you, if you're a doctor or something, you can explain
how I don't understand how the medical stuff worked but as I
understood it, they said, "Okay, you have a latent form of TB and
we need to give you this medicine and you need to take it
faithfully every single day, don't miss it because we're
going to give you something that helps to encapsulate it so that
you never get the actual active strand of TB that makes you sick
and everyone around you sick but you have to take it every
day because we're giving you just a little bit of the real
thing so that your body can respond to it and inoculate
yourself against it." We understand how
inoculations work. Often it's like that with
vaccines or you take allergy shots, "Hey, you're
allergic to everything. Well, just come on in and give
you a shot every week of this stuff you're allergic to."
Great idea. But it works because they give
you a little bit in measured doses so that when you encounter
the real thing in real life, it doesn't bother you anymore.
Isn't that the danger many of us, maybe especially people
like us have with Jesus? Just enough Jesus to be
inoculated against the real thing, just enough church,
just enough songs, just enough Christian music on the radio,
just enough conferences, just enough Christian books. We have a familiarity with Jesus
but we've not really come face to face with this Jesus. They grew up with Jesus. They knew him. They saw him. They could touch him,
they could eat a meal with him. He was this boy that grew up in
the little town just like the rest of them. Some of us are so familiar with
Jesus, we're no longer impressed by him and this is
a scary place to be. There are many people in this
country, perhaps some even here this morning, who confess faith
in Christ and you go to church but there is nothing going on in
your life spiritually. There will be people who will
show up at all of our churches in two weeks on Easter and they
got no beef with Jesus, but they got no relationship
with him either. They're like the people of
Nazareth, they appreciate the show, they recognize some
special things about Jesus, and if he can help solve a few
problems, great, but familiarity can breed unbelief. The New Testament is not
interested in a kind of wow, Jesus-is-cool sort of faith. No. They want a faith that is more
than simply marveling, they want a faith
that is worshipping. Notice that by the end of this
chapter, they have moved from, "He speaks well," to,
"Is He really that special? He's Joseph's son,"
all the way down to "Everyone in the synagogue
hated him and they wanted to kill him." So what are the lessons
for us in closing? Let me give you three. As we think about our ministry,
we think about the mission of the church, how might the
mission and ministry of Jesus connect with our mission
and ministry? Three things and they relate to
each of these three points. First, we see that Jesus'
ministry and mission tells us something
about preaching. Think about it. Of all the methods that Jesus
could have employed to conduct himself in his earthly ministry,
he chose this method, to announce, to speak,
to preach. And you remember what they said about him at the
Sermon on the Mount? They marveled when he was done. Why? Because Jesus spoke as one who
told such great stories, they marveled because
he was so funny. They marveled because of his
dizzying intellect or his great compassion. No, they marveled because unlike
the scribes, he spoke as one who had authority. He preached. The parables of the kingdom so
often are about this strange miracle of preaching. The farmer sows his seed and
then he goes to sleep and he wakes up and he knows not how
and there's a harvest. Why? Because it is not based upon the
ingenuity and ultimately the intellect of the farmer but the
germinating power inherent in the seed. Great movements of God have
always been sparked by great preaching about God. We must not, in an effort to do
all manner of good things that we are commanded as Christians
to do, lose sight of what uniquely makes Christian mission
and ministry Christian, the announcement of good news,
the proclamation of Jesus Christ, son of man and
son of God who died for sinners according to the scriptures,
was raised again and is coming again to judge the living
and the dead. Preach Christ. Second, this passage tells us
something not only about preaching but about people
and in particular the sort of people for whom this
preaching will be receptive. I said that the widow of
Zarephath and Naaman were opposites and they were in terms
of social strata and economic prosperity,
but as Lig pointed out last night, they had this in
common, they were both outsiders. Outsiders from the
perspective of Israel. They were unlikely people to
have received the blessing of God. Are you prepared? Let me make it personal. Am I prepared for those to
receive the gospel that they will be people not like us,
whatever you think of as us? Maybe it's the elites,
the sort of people that you think are safe to make fun of
because, well, that's… they're people and
they deserve it, the elites,
or maybe it's rural. Maybe the people not like you
are the people who wear red MAGA hats, or maybe the people
like you are the people who don't think Trump is a very good
president and he's dangerous. Maybe the people not like you
are immigrants, or maybe the people not like us are those who
think that there ought to be a wall on the border. Maybe the people not like us are
the artsy hipsters or maybe they're the people who seem so
unhip that they only watch television shows on network
television and they like the Christian movies. People not like me, not like us. It's not saying that there are
no important differences between all of those examples
and no important policies to discuss and debate and better
or worse answers but it is to say, are we prepared that as
we preach the gospel, it is for all of those who are
brokenhearted enough to believe and say, "I need that Jesus?" And then finally this text is
something not only about preaching and about people
but about perceptions. You and I are not prepared to do
ministry in this world, in this day, unless we are prepared
to be misunderstood, sometimes by people honestly trying to
understand and sometimes by people willfully
misunderstanding. Jesus was misunderstood. Jesus was not always successful
as we might define success. Surely, he was the best
preacher, he was the best man. He had the best miracles.
He had the best deeds. If anyone would win a hearing,
if anyone had the right person and the right message and the
right message, it was Jesus and yet they hated him. Wanted to drive him off a cliff. I know as I preach Jesus,
the ideal for me is they like Jesus and they like me. Can we do both of those things? Don't always work that way. Maybe they like one
or the other. Well, let it not be this, that
they don't like Jesus because you give them good reasons for
them not to like you. That's not the aim. But let us also be prepared that
they may not like you because, in fact, they don't really
like Jesus. Prepare to be misunderstood,
pray for the poor to have ears to hear, and keep preaching
Christ. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven,
we thank you for your word, for all that you mean to
teach us by it. We pray that you would give to
everyone here, in whatever capacity you have given us to
speak of Christ, Bible study leaders, women's ministry
leaders, we're standing behind the pulpit on Sunday
morning, that the banner that we're flying and the flag that
we're waving above our ministry and above our church,
it's not a political platform, not a political party,
not a nation-state, not even a tradition or a confession or a
catechism, but is Christ, and him crucified, for Jesus
will draw all people unto himself.
We pray in his name. Amen.