Unveiling Jesus' Mission: Setting the Oppressed Free

We're going to pick back up. This is really part two, I guess you would say,

of our message last week.

We came to a great ending last week for that part, but we're going here after

the temptations of Jesus, and we're looking at here in Scripture,

setting free the oppressed.

And you've got to look at it here in this passage that on the heels of his victory

in the wilderness, Jesus returned to his home region of Galilee.

Look again at verse 14, that first one we read earlier of chapter 4.

He says, in the power of the Spirit, right? In the power of the Spirit.

And by all accounts here, things were going very well.

News about Jesus was spreading through the whole countryside in verse 14.

And his teaching into the synagogues was received with praise,

wasn't it, as we read in verse 15.

In other words, if you look at it here, Jesus is riding a wave of power and popularity.

We might say that things really could not be going better.

But the story of Jesus's life and ministry, guess what? It's full of surprising turns, right?

And within a few short verses, the adoration of the crowds has given way to

what? Thoughts of murder.

And at different times in his ministry, Jesus actually articulated his mission differently.

Later on, we're going to see that he's going to explain his mission in terms

of actually suffering and rejection that must come to him over in chapter 9 and chapter 17.

But when the people of Capernaum wanted him to stay with them,

he replied what? Look at verse 43 again.

He said, I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns

also, because that is why I was sent.

At this point, Jesus' mission is to preach his message in Galilee.

And it is that good news of the kingdom of God that Jesus actually proclaims

in Nazareth, guess what, his hometown.

We see that in chapter 2, verse 39. He entered into the synagogue,

a place where Jewish men gathered to read, expound, and debate the scriptures.

And given what we've seen in the wilderness about Jesus' love for and use of

the scriptures, it's not surprising that Jesus actually, as we read in our passage today,

actually made it his custom to teach in such a context, it says in verse 16 of chapter 4.

In fact, in this particular gathering, the scroll of Isaiah the prophet was given to him to read.

We see that in verses 16 and 17. And it seems that Jesus intentionally unrolled

the scroll to a specific place in the text of Isaiah.

Notice that Luke tells us that Jesus found the place where it is written, verse 17.

And while it's almost certain that Jesus would have read a longer section of Isaiah,

Luke records for us an excerpt of that in verses 18 and 19 that mostly comes

from Isaiah chapter 61, verses 1 and 2.

Isaiah 61:1

And he reads that passage. And in fact, there are a few changes to the text

as Luke records it. But first, the language is really to set the oppressed free.

It's been imported into the passage, probably from Isaiah chapter 58, verse 6.

Isaiah 58:6

And it seems to be one scholar, I'll share his words because I thought it was

interesting what he shared here,

Green, in his commentary on this passage, he said that draw special attention,

these words, to the word release as a characteristic activity of Jesus's ministry to proclaim that.

In fact, the second difference that we actually see is located in Jesus' choice

here to end his citation of Isaiah before the phrase, the day of vengeance of

our God, as we read in Isaiah.

And several other scholars have pointed out as well that that really just serves

to keep the spotlight on the message of the Lord's favor rather than his judgment.

Why he was here, what he had come for. In fact, in essence, the good news of

the kingdom here, think about it, church is that outsiders, the poor, the oppressed,

the imprisoned, the crippled, you name it, have been sent a spirit anointed

messenger here of God's grace.

Those who seem to have been beyond the reach of the Lord's favor are now recipients of his salvation.

Don't you just love what Jesus does through the gospel?

I mean, it's no surprise though to Luke's readers, we've already been prepared

for this reversal of fortune, you remember by Mary's reflection on this very

theme in her song of praise.

In fact, it's no surprise that the synagogue was fixed on Jesus,

it says in verse 20, waiting to hear what he would say about this important message.

But you know, it's unlikely that

they were reading for Jesus's brief and appointed sermon on this text.

It was that they were thinking that it was being fulfilled this very day in their ears.

In their presence. Jesus is telling them that he is the prophet, verse 24,

and the Messiah, a title that comes from the Hebrew word that's translated anointed

in Isaiah 61, verse 1, who would be sent by the Lord in the power of the Spirit

Isaiah 61:1

to declare the good news of God's favor.

So the powerful works of Jesus Eastwood that conclude this chapter serve almost

as sermon illustrations.

Although these healings and exorcisms that we read about probably took place

before Jesus' reading in the Nazareth synagogue, it helps us to understand the

comments in verse 23 of Luke chapter 4 that we read.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

Luke doesn't include them until his reader has the theological hooks,

if you will, on which to hang those things, hang that information.

Because that's to say that, y'all, Isaiah's passage read in Nazareth here informs

how we interpret events at the end of the chapter.

In fact, in Capernaum, the anointing of the Spirit was demonstrated in the authority

of his teaching there in verses 31 and 32.

His ministry of healing the sick and his power over impure spirits, right? Demons.

Both the people and the demons are forced to acknowledge Jesus' power and authority,

aren't they? to carry out his mission of good news to all.

In fact, Jesus' ministry here creates such a sensation that it actually threatens

to overwhelm his God-given mission to preach all over the region.

In fact, Luke's reference here to Judea, if we look in this passage this morning,

is probably a way of referring to the entire area where Jewish people lived,

rather than specifically to the region of Judea.

The people of Capernaum try to prevent his departure. You saw that right in

verse 42. They don't want him to leave.

And the demons actually openly declare what Jesus has only been willing to imply up to this point.

Namely what? That he is what?

The Christ, right? But Jesus could not remain in one town and he would not allow

the demons to create a frenzy with information that the crowds were just not ready yet to handle.

But what's clear from this section in Luke's gospel here is that,

y'all, Jesus is the one sent by the Lord both to declare and to implement God's gracious design.

He's there about his father's business. In fact, his arrival is good news for the outcast. Amen?

The oppressed are being sent free. In fact, it also leads us to this.

He's a prophet, according to this passage, without honor.

A prophet without honor. In fact, the reader would have every reason here to

expect that Jesus would warmly be received in Nazareth, right? It was his hometown.

Then as a preacher and healer, he had gained something like celebrity status.

And surely his return to his hometown synagogue here would create quite a bit

of buzz, right? Can you just imagine?

And so it comes as no surprise that in response to his message of release,

favor, and freedom, Guess what here?

The people all spoke well of him. Look at verse 22.

They all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.

But there is, however, I don't know if y'all caught this, the issue of his origin. Look at verse 22.

How is it that Joseph's son has become such a powerful rabbi?

You see, Luke was prepared. He has well prepared his reader here for the ironic

humor, right, that's here.

We know, of course, what? That Jesus is not really Joseph's son, is he?

We saw that all the way back in chapter 2, verse 49. Jesus' negative response

in verses 23 through 27 seems out of step with the crowd's words of approval.

But he seems to have access, y'all, to the unspoken thoughts and attitudes of

the people that are there.

He knows, church, that they will quote and will tell him that the picture,

and the picture of it really would be not nearly so rosy as it might appear.

They would quote, they want the physician, in other words, he said,

to practice his healing arts on those close to him. In other words, those in his hometown.

Like, you know, the attitude would be like, well, you grew up here,

Jesus, you know, we're your home buds, right? Homeboy.

Lord, you're going to stay here and just bless us. We know each other, right?

But to this point, guess what? You know, as you read the passage with me,

he declined to do the things in his hometown that he had done in Capernaum, verse 23.

And the townspeople question might seem innocent and understandable to us from

a distance, but Jesus sees below the surface a fundamental rejection of his

mission and his ministry.

And he's come, what does he say? To bring unmerited good news to the poor and

sight for the blind in verse 18.

But they expect, y'all, that they have a right to his blessings because they're from his hometown.

They recognize that he has power and they marvel at his teaching,

but they don't believe in him or his God-given mission.

If the people have a proverb for Jesus, look at verse 23. He has one for them

as well. What does he say in verse 24?

No prophet is what? Yeah. No prophet is accepted in his hometown.

And Jesus mentioned here, he goes back in the Old Testament,

mentions incidents from the ministries of Elijah and Elisha in 1 Kings 17, 2 Kings 5.

It serves a dual purpose here. On one hand, it brings to mind the fact that

these two prophets, guess what? First of all, they were rejected, right?

Rejected, persecuted in the course of their ministries. They were exhibits A

and B, so to speak, proving Jesus' point about prophets who were not accepted at home.

And on the other hand, both of these men performed miracles,

right, outside of their homeland.

I mean, both Elijah and Elisha pointed forward to who?

Who did they point to? To Jesus. Remember?

By reminding Israel that God shows his favor and mercy to unlikely people, in their case, to who?

Gentiles. Guess what, y'all? That's us. Aren't you grateful?

You see, the people of Nazareth rightly perceive Jesus' rebuke.

They're being compared to Israel in the days of the prophets here.

In fact, they are being reminded that the ministry of the Christ is for who?

The humble, the poor, the unlikely.

Remember I told y'all that you might be surprised when you get to heaven who's

there. People, you think sometimes there's no way they're going to make you to heaven.

Ain't no way. I think God just kind of laughs and says, have you experienced my amazing grace?

Have you experienced that? Because I came for those who are sick,

not for those who are well, not to those who think they have it all together.

And those respond to the message. These people here, after they hear all this,

verse 28, how do they respond?

Do they say, amen, Jesus? Say, right on, Lord. What do they do?

How do they respond? It says they're in rage, right? They're angry.

And it says that murderous intentions, there they have, and they'll have no part of his blessing.

In fact, as you read that passage, in the end, all there is for Jesus to do

is to escape the crowd's clutches, right? They want to, what do they want to do with him?

Want to throw him over the cliff. I mean, I can't imagine, Brother James,

I preach a message to you guys this morning and I preach it and you get so mad

that you want to take me to the edge of town and throw me over a cliff.

I mean, you know what I'm saying?

Let's hope I don't have it. All right. But I'm just saying, Jesus here,

this is what happened here.

And by what means we're not told

how Jesus passed through. We just told in verse 30, he went on his way.

I mean, that's just the miraculous power of God, right? I mean,

certainly there was some sort of confusion or they couldn't see him or something

happened where he was able to get through. We don't know.

But in fact, he did that in order to continue, church, walking in obedience to who?

To God, living out the mission on which he's been sent.

Y'all are going to hear more about this later, but y'all, we are made for mission, made for mission.

Well, then we see a poke in your eye. Does that sound great?

A poke in your eye, right?

And it's easy to read the confrontation in Nazareth here as a warning to others, right?

But if you step back with me today and see it as a warning to those who might

be tempted to presume upon God's favor, perhaps maybe it hits closer to home.

You know, Jesus's message here is radical, church.

He's been sent to the unlikely, the poor, the unimportant. do you see here?

And the outsider, those who assume that he owes them his favor,

people from his hometown, maybe even some people who are so committed that they'll

read commentaries on the Bible.

They'll attend church, so to speak, every day, every Sunday.

They'll find themselves watching Jesus's back as he walks away from them.

Y'all, don't miss the opportunity today, Eastwood, to take stock of your presumptions.

Commit yourself to coming to Jesus, church, on the basis of his kindness and

his mercy, and not on the basis of any merit on your own.

Because y'all, we have none. We have zero.

The only good in us is the righteousness of Christ.

We have nothing. and Jesus' understanding of his own mission to bring good news

to the poor, as we see in this next slide, it also must shape the church's understanding,

that's us, of our mission.

You know, it's easy for Christians to become complacent, you know,

just content to keep the gospel to themselves or to share it with only those

put-together people and presentable sorts of people.

But the kind of behavior, church, that kind of behavior is scandalous.

It's warping of the mission that God has given us.

Ask yourself today, think about this today. Are there kinds of people who would

not feel welcome in my church?

Are there kinds of people that I wouldn't think of inviting over to my house for a meal?

Are there kinds of people that

I find too messy and too inconvenient to share the love of Christ with?

I want y'all to know today, I want you to realize that those kinds of people

are the people to whom Jesus declared the Lord's favor.

And I have to ask us all today, do they enjoy yours?

That's who Jesus came for. And you see, until we see ourselves in desperate

need of his forgiveness, of his grace, of his blood's cleansing of our sin,

and we see ourselves as poor in spirit.

We see ourselves as needy.

We see ourselves as those that are unworthy of his love.

That's who he came for, man. If you got it all together today,

the bad news is he didn't come for you. He came for the sick.

He came for the sick. If you haven't been sick with sin and you haven't had

that in your heart and you have not realized your need for God's grace and forgiveness,

Jesus didn't come for you and you can't get it.

But when you realize your need, you realize that you're that one who needs Him,

that outcast, then you realize, you know what?

It's His grace alone that cleanses me. And I'll tell you what it does.

It makes us as a church, as a body of believers.

It wants us to look up and we want to say, you know what? I'm going to fulfill

through the power of the Spirit, because the Lord did everything He did,

what? In the power of the Spirit.

I want to fulfill the Great Commission in the power of the Spirit.

And I am going to walk out these doors living, learning, loving.

I'm going to walk out these doors and feel the Great Commission.

I am going to be a follower of Jesus who is on mission, just like He was.

That's what we need to be about, Eastwood. That's what we need to be about.

In fact, we have an opportunity. You'll hear a bit more about it later.

But we have an opportunity coming up and throughout the course of this year.

Our missions team has been hard at work.

They've been planning out some opportunities for us that we're going to have some of it.

The first one, you'll hear more about this later, but would include serving

a meal to our own campus college students at the community college here on Sunday

evening, March the 16th.

And guess what? We're actually going to take the church that we would have had

here that night, and we're going to all go on mission over there.

And we're going to do this from time to time. We're going to do stuff like that.

There'll be other opportunities.

They have some things they'll talk to us about, some opportunities,

maybe at the VA home, some activities this summer, as well as more opportunities

at the college, as well as other places around us and beyond.

But I want you to know this made for mission, what we're seeing here, even in Luke's gospel.

We're also going to have, we're going to pause here in a couple of weeks,

the gospel of Luke, And we're going to do a focused series here just for about

six weeks that picks right up here where we left off today on being made for mission.

And I pray today, church, that you're ready to make a difference.

You're ready to be on mission for Christ. You are ready to serve your King.

And one of the things we talked about doing, the missions team actually came

up with an approximate cost of what they believe approximately this will cost

us throughout the rest of the year. to do some of the things we're looking at.

And we were looking at about $2,000.

And so I talked with the deacons and we thought that might be appropriate to

just set aside to say, look, we're going to have a designated fund,

a designated offering for Made for Mission project.

Made for Mission. Our goal is $2,000.

Now, we don't necessarily have to get all $2,000 up front, although that would

be wonderful. But it's something we're going to be doing throughout the rest of this year.

And so if you would feel in your heart that you would like to give towards those

things, you'll hear a little bit more about those at the end of the service here before we go.

Then you can just put in an offering envelope and say, hey, I'm designating

this to Made for Mission.

And we're going to have a focus Sunday on that, by the way.

I believe it's going to be March the 9th. I'll go ahead and say that.

March the 9th, made for mission.

We have a focus that day as we kick off that series.

And I think that would be a great day. Give us a little bit of time to think about it, pray about it.

That would be a great day if some of you that do feel led to give towards that

said, hey, I'm just going to do that that day.

Okay, I'm going to start it out that day. But y'all, we are anticipating.

We are excited about what God can do as we just surrender ourselves.

As we show people love, like we read about in the scriptures,

as we let people know that they're not just a number, that we care about them as people, right?

Jesus' ministry here was not who they thought it was going to be to.

Y'all, our ministry, we need to get outside these walls.

Yeah, we ministered each other. We love each other's Christian brothers and

sisters, obviously, right?

But we got to get outside these walls and reach people with the love of Christ.

And ultimately, obviously, that is the gospel. And that's our challenge today.