Jan. 14, 2001

Luke 4:14-30

Getting Off to a Rocky(?) Start

  1. Introduction
    1. Illustration – Everyone is familiar with the concept of the hometown hero. The boy or girl who makes good, who does the extraordinary. How many of you remember Dale Murphy, who played for the Braves for years? Very classy, Christian guy who everyone cheered for when he won the National League Most Valuable Player playing on a very mediocre team. The Portland media have been almost going out of their minds over Scott Brosius, who has played a key role in the Yankees’ World Series championships. We are all looking for someone to cheer for, someone we can take pride in, someone who gives us the hope that we can go beyond our often mundane lives and become great.
    2. Context – Jesus was a hometown boy who made good. He exceeded everyone’s expectations. But His hometown’s reaction to Him was less than favorable.
  1. Scripture Passages
    1. Let’s read together Luke 4:14-30 - Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. 16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor." 20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn’t this Joseph’s son?" they asked. 23 Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’" 24 "I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian." 28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
    2. What’s the point of this passage? Is it that people are fickle, and will turn on you like rabid dogs if you cross them? Or does it have something to do with their attitudes? Let’s take a closer look and find out what this passage is really about, and what it means to us.
  1. The Power of the Spirit
    1. Jesus had just finished being tempted in the Judean desert for forty days. The angels came and met his needs, then Jesus left the desert and returned to Galilee "in the power of the Spirit." You know, we often think of the power of the Holy Spirit as something that is none to powerful, but the root of the word "power" in the Greek is the same as the root of the word we use called "dynamite." So we could say that Jesus was like dynamite in the power of the Spirit in Galilee. And that power was so much on Him that news about Him spread throughout the area.
    2. He also taught in the synagogues in towns throughout Galilee, and everyone was praising Him. So by the time He reached Nazareth, they had already heard lots of good things about Him and how everyone throughout the area thought very highly of Him. So get this picture in your mind: it’s a Saturday morning. You are in stone building standing in the back (you can’t sit because you aren’t Jewish). The place is packed, because everybody in town has heard great things about this homeboy. The service starts. One of the community leaders reads what was known as the Shema – Deut. 6:4-9, which reads: Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Then someone prays, probably for deliverance from the Roman occupation. Then a fixed portion of the law is read. Next comes the time for a free reading from the Prophets, followed by an explanation of one or both passages. The custom was to stand to read the Scriptures and to sit to preach. The ruling elders have extended an invitation to the honored guest to do this. The room is silent, except for the expectant breathing of the crowd. What is this Jesus going to say? Why does everyone in the whole area praise Him?
  1. The Message
    1. The hometown hero stands. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet is handed to Him. He unrolls it and begins to read. Why is He reading this passage? Doesn’t He know this passage is one that foretells the coming of Messiah? And what will He say about it when He is finished?
    2. You can open your eyes now. Could you see it in your mind? What is so significant about the passage that Jesus read? He says that the Spirit of the Lord is on Him and has anointed Him. By saying this, He is identifying Himself as a prophet. But what is the prophet’s message?
    1. Illustration – English novelist J.G. Ballard said, "In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom!" In my opinion, Ballard missed the boat. Imamu Amiri Baraka wrote, A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom. Alice Childress wrote …it’s a poor kind of man that won’t fight for his own freedom. Alfred Adler wrote It is always easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them. Saul Alinsky wrote The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself. Peter Abrahams wrote To get where you want to go you can’t only do what you like. Marcus Cicero wrote Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered. Jesus, in John 8:36, says "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." The apostle Paul, in Galatians 5:1, writes, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Jesus came to set His listeners free. He came to set us free. It’s about time we started living like free people.
  1. The Response
    1. After Jesus read this passage and sat down, all eyes were on Him, waiting for an explanation or an application. He gave them an application, but probably not what they were expecting. The Greek says that they "wondered" or "were amazed" or "admired" Him for His gracious words and said, "Isn’t this Joseph’s son?"
    2. Those in the synagogue, the ones Jesus grew up with, were blown away by the words that their hometown hero had spoken. One can imagine that each of them were searching their minds, scanning through their memories, trying to figure out where this was all coming from.
    3. Jesus knew his audience. He knew what they were thinking. So instead of trying to convince them of something they would never accept, He tried to shock them into the truth by sharing with them the condition of their own hearts. The Israelites of the time of Jesus tried extremely hard to separate themselves from the behavior of their ancestors. That behavior had caused God to exile them from their homeland. So the Jews that Jesus grew up with considered themselves better than their ancestors, because they followed the letter of the Law. By comparing them to the pre-exile Jews, Jesus was telling them that they were no better.
    4. The people of Nazareth, who only hours before had been buzzing about Jesus, were so infuriated by the comparison that they tried to throw Him off of a cliff. They were not happy campers! But the reason they weren’t happy was because they were confronted with the truth.
  1. Our Response
    1. Who do we identify with in the story? How do we respond when we are confronted with the truth about ourselves? Jesus came to set us free by confronting us with the truth about ourselves.
    2. So what is the central idea of the text? What is the main point? It’s this: truth is something that God uses to confront us – how we respond will determine its ability to affect our lives. The people of Nazareth had to opportunity to experience the freedom that Jesus came to proclaim. But they allowed their preconceptions of Him to cloud their ability to hear the truth He was proclaiming. What preconceptions do we allow to cloud the truth of what He is trying to say to us? How will each of us respond to the truth?
    3. God anointed Jesus to proclaim as a royal messenger the good news that we don’t have to be spiritually poor, that we don’t have to live like blind prisoners of war, that we don’t have to live like we are shackled in prison, that we don’t have to live like God’s favor is not upon us.
  1. Conclusion
    1. If you profess to be a Christian, then you have to ask yourself, "Am I living like Jesus has set me free and restored my sight so that I can follow Him?" If you’re not, why aren’t you? Believing is good, but it really doesn’t matter if it does not impact the way you live your life and the attitudes you have about God.
    2. If you are not a Christian, if you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, why don’t you? Jesus came to proclaim good news, the good news that we can have a vital and living relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The good news that Jesus died on the cross and rose again so that our sins can be forgiven and that we can have that relationship with God. You have the opportunity to be set free from slavery to sin and separation from God; why not take it?
    3. With every head bowed and every eye closed, we’re going to do things a little bit differently this morning. If you would like to begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ this morning, please raise your hand. I’ll send someone over to take with you and pray with you. They will take you through the process of beginning a new relationship with Jesus Christ. So raise your hand if you would like to do this.
    4. Those who already have a relationship with Jesus Christ, who want to follow Him and start living like the free people that you are, you have an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment. If Jesus is going to set you free, He needs the key to your heart.
    5. On New Year’s Eve, at about ten minutes to midnight, about twenty people went up and nailed the key to their hearts to the cross as a sign of their commitment to follow Jesus wherever He leads. Those folks don’t need to nail another key, because their hearts only have one key. But if you haven’t nailed the key to your heart to the cross, and you want to follow Jesus to the freedom you have in Him, please come up and nail the key to your heart to the cross. You can come up the center aisle, grab a key and a pushpin, take the hammer, and nail that key to the cross. And as you do so, commit yourself to following Jesus into the freedom that He has for you.
    6. We’re going to leave that cross up for a while, maybe even the whole year, to remind us of the commitment we have made. Let’s pray.
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