Readiness to Rejection

To Luke chapter four and just turn to somebody next to you and tell them who wrote Luke? Would you do that? Just turn. That is not a difficult question. Okay.

We appreciate Luke, who is a Gentile and he's the only Gentile writer in the New Testament that we know of. And he knew Jesus by way of Paul. And he came to know Christ through, through Paul's ministry and accepted Christ as a savior and became a missionary and a historian. He's also a physician and a very blessed physician. And he went with Paul on his missionary journeys.

And so we're studying Luke's account of the life of Christ and we've looked at how he was called as a 12 year old in Jerusalem and he felt God's call and. And although he knew from the very beginning, his mother did, that God had a special place for him and he was son of God, but also son of man. And it's hard for us to grasp all that kind of concept. But we connect with him through his humanness and also through his divineness too, also. But he was called at 12 and he stayed at home until his family was taken care of and he began his public ministry and baptism.

And he was baptized by John the Baptist not because he needed to be baptized, he had no sins to forgive, but he was baptized because he identified with the message of John the Baptist. And that begins us when we're baptized back here in this Baptistry, then we're buried with him in baptism and raised to walk in newness of Christ. But then he was tested. He went out and to be tested by Satan. And Satan for 40 days he was tested kind of like the children of Israel in the wilderness.

And then Satan had three special temptations for Jesus. And each time, this is what he did. He reached in the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit. And he called upon God's word and he backed Satan down all three times. So he starts his public ministry in Galilee.

And Galilee was where he received more reception. People were more open to him than any other place. The closer he got to Jerusalem, the more Jerusalem kind of pushed away from him. But he goes to his hometown in Nazareth. And Nazareth was a kind of a little bitty community, not very big community and only about 2,000 people at that time.

So it was a very small community and not very much about that. Nothing ever good ever came out of Nazareth. At least that was a word on the street. But going back to your hometown is sometimes a hard thing to do because people knew you well, they knew Christ. But when I came Back to my hometown.

I thought they'd run me out of town too when I preached. And they said they remembered me when. Well, I won't say any more about that, but just leave it at that. Okay, but it's also your hometown that's got a very special place in your heart because you know the people and people are very special. I have a hard time understanding the anti Semitic kind of attitude against Jewish people because Selma has been, at least when I grew up, was a town of a good Jewish number of people.

Looked like all the stores downtown were run by Jewish men and women. I think Frank's dad was the own Selma men's shop, wasn't it? Was.

Huffman Huckabees. Huckabees. Yeah. Well, it was Jewish Selma men shop at one time, wasn't it? Wasn't it?

Okay, he said that. Yes. He'll get on me later on. Said, you know, that's. He's being accommodating.

Thank you, Frank, for doing that.

Now, in honor of God's Word, would you stand as us read a kind of segment of this time in his hometown? We'll start with verse 20. If you have your Bibles in chapter four, and this is a long read, so I won't keep you standing the whole time. But in verse 20, he said this, and he closed the book. They had scrolls, and scrolls would have two cylinders at both ends, and they would scroll it up.

So they didn't have a book, but they had a scroll. And he had reached in and found in the scroll the place of Isaiah. So he closed the book and he gave it again to the minister. And he sat down, which was the position of a teacher. And all the eyes of them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

He had their attention. And he began to say unto them, today, this day is the scripture fulfilled in your eyes. The Messiah you have been waiting for is here. And all bore him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And he said.

And they said unto. They said within their hearts. And he's reading their hearts. Is not this Joseph's son?

Like they're at this place of decision and they're almost. Almost persuaded.

Almost.

Almost. And so many people have been almost. But they didn't take that step. They wondered at the gracious words which proceed. And they said, is not this?

And he said unto them, you will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal yourself. What you've done in other places, we want you to do here. And he said, verily I say unto you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. And he began to say unto them, if you don't receive it again, others will. And they got angry.

Now don't get angry in church, please don't get angry. And don't get angry at me. And don't take me out at the river and throw me over the edge. That's the wrong way to preach your interim pastor. Okay.

But that's what they did to Jesus. Got almost and back down. May God bless the reading of his word. And you may be seated.

Jesus came to engage a culture that was out of control. And you think our culture is in a place of being out of control? I think there was a political primary out west. Well, they voted on a Republican candidate. And the category that won was none of the candidates.

And that was the one that won. And I wonder where we are with the Republicans who seem to be angry at themselves and angry with others. And how are we in the country that we live in? In Florida, there was a lady who came home from work. She worked at a hospital.

She came home from work and somebody had stolen her concrete driveway. Now we're in bad shape in a world where they. A concrete driveway is no longer safe. So you might want to put a fence around your concrete driveway when you leave from home. But we're in a kind of culture that seemed, in a lot of ways it's kind of out of control.

But it's been out of control ever since. Man sin in the garden. And from then on, God repented of God that he had made man. For every thought was against God, every thought was away from God. And so God called Noah and Noah family was saved.

And there was a flood and everybody. The whole earth was destroyed. But God started all over with Noah and his family. But then Noah, they built this tower and they said, we can do without God. We can build our own tower.

We don't need God. And so they backed down. God came down and confused them. And they were scattered throughout the earth. But then God started all over again in Abraham.

And he called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees. And Abraham had to leave his home and come to a place that he had never been before, the Palestine. But all that land would be his for an inheritance. And that's what they're fighting over today.

But then the Jewish religion seemed to take another turn and fall in another direction. So God sends Jesus his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And that's God's last plan. There is no other plan. The Muslims will tell you that Muhammad is the last plan, but Muhammad's not the last plan.

It's Jesus Christ. And so God has sent Jesus to save us from our sins, and that is God's plan. So Jesus engages a world that's out of control. I heard about a agricultural representative in Perry county and he was driving through Perry county and he saw got at some intersection. As he got to the intersection, there was these chickens that came by.

And as the chickens came by, there were three legged chickens. And so he was so excited about seeing three legged chickens, he went to, followed them around and found the owner of place. And he said, you really just so these three legged chickens? He says, yeah, I love drumsticks. And so I began to work these together until finally we got three legged chickens.

Are you with me? Did I go over your head or are you standing?

Okay, well, so he asked the owner, he says, how do they taste? And he said, I don't know, I haven't been able to catch them since I.

And I think about that how God created us and how he's blessed us and gave us all the gifts that he has given us. And yet as a whole, people are running away from God. Not running toward God, but they're running away from God. So Jesus came to engage a culture that was running away from God. And even though they were very religious, they had their own ideas of what the Messiah would be.

They wanted to get rid of those hated Romans. And if we had a army that was occupying Selma, Alabama, we would want to get rid of those foreigners that were coming after us. So that was the idea of the Messiah. And yet scripture spoke of something different. That wouldn't be a political kind of thing, it would be a spiritual thing.

All those political moves would not work. And we see all kind of civilizations that have gone down because they built it on some kind of political idea. But it's spiritual. And God came to work to own us from the inside out. And we all got our kind of presuppositions or idea about what things should be and how they are.

And we start off with these ideas about what we think they ought to be. And then God has to change our mind about those kind of things. And we build these kind of presuppositions about what God will bless and what he will do and how he will act. And yet God has to come to us and change those kind of things in our life and help us see things not from our self. Centeredness.

But from his point of view. I had a fraternity brother who was a very smart guy. And I just. You know, he took organic chemistry and he took calculus, and he'd knocked the top out of that. And I looked at him, and his name was Terry.

And I saw Terry as the kind of person that. Man, he's probably one of those geeks, you know, those geeks in class that just knock the top out of the grades and everything, but could not relate to anybody else. He was that kind. I thought he was that kind of person. So Terry got.

Graduated top of his class. I think he was kind of number one at Auburn. But he went on to med school and became a heart surgeon. And I was in Birmingham with this lady who was from here who was having heart surgery. And I was in there praying for her and opened the door and the heart surgeon came in to talk to her, and it was Terri.

And I thought, man, how is he going to connect with her?

And I watched Terry talk to that lady and become so compassionate.

But I had put him in a category, and I watched him come across that category and become the person that I never thought he would be. Now, the people in Nazareth had put their idea about a Messiah in a category. And when Jesus stood before them in that synagogue, he was not in that category that they had taught. And yet he was everything the Bible had pointed to. And if you have your Bibles, let's look and see what happened in a place called Nazareth.

If you look in verse 14, and let's kind of start there. Jesus is beginning his public ministry. And he returned in the power of the Holy Spirit. It was the power of the Holy Spirit that had caused him to be. When he was baptized, he was already full of the Holy Spirit.

But the Holy Spirit came upon him and gave him that special kind of strength and power that the Holy Spirit brings to our lives and set him on his mission. And then in the wilderness, when he was tempted by Satan, it was the power of the Holy Spirit that gave him the right words to say and God's word to say. And he backed Satan down every time. But here he's in the power of the Holy Spirit. And he went out and he was like a kind of rock star.

Things were going well for him. He begins his ministry solo and Lex later on he will add his disciples to the ministry. But in all his fame was going out and everybody was saying, man, he is doing such great things in Galilee. And he had a kind of itinerant ministry that he went from this city to this city. To this city and would preach and do miracles.

And people were saying, man, this is. God is doing some great things. But verse 16 tells us that he came to Nazareth. I don't know whether he'd been putting that off because I think he knows what's going to happen at Nazareth. Maybe we kind of put off some things that we don't want to go to, but God has kind of put it on our hearts.

So he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And the people knew him. They knew him when he and his dad worked or his earthly dad worked a carpenter shop. They knew him when he had been there for the Sabbath day when he would come to worship in his hometown, in the synagogue there in his hometown. Susan and I went to Nazareth on one of our tours.

And there we sat in one of the synagogues that was there in Nazareth. And I just thought about this verse as. And the reader there for us read this verse about what happened in Nazareth. So it was delivered unto him, the prophet Isaiah. And he found the place.

It was like they would say something from the first five books of the Torah, which was the Torah that was part of the synagogue service. And I used to bring my girls from Judson over here to. And Simo Cohen would come and lead them and show them what the service was. And they had the Torah up there. And standing in that synagogue was.

And we know so many of those folks that were there, a part of that Jewish assembly. But they gave him the book and he found the place where it was written. And he says this in verse 18. If you have the spirit of the Lord is upon me. You hear that word, me?

That's a personal pronoun. God's spirit is happening to me. He has anointed me, said Jesus, to preach the good news, to heal the brokenhearted, to deliver those that are captive and give sight to the blind, to declare the year of the jubilee. And the year of the jubilee was the seventh year when they would let the land go without cultivation. Any debts that were accumulated, they would.

The debts would be forgiven. Any slaves that were there, they would free them. It's the year of the jubilee, said Jesus. And I'm here to tell you about it. That's when he closed the book and sat down.

And there's just this fixture of eyes upon him. Things he had said were just great things. And he said gracious words that just caught their attention and they were right there. Almost persuaded thine to believe. Almost persuaded.

And yet they began to say this. This is Joseph's son. Then they wanted him to do some kind of special miracles that others had seen. But it says he comes back several times, and this is an unmiracle story. He wanted to do some miracles in that place, but they backed away from that because of their idea of unbelief and lack of faith.

And if he had just seen a little bit of faith, he would have done some great things.

But they all bore him witness of how he was speaking to them, and it was just so close. And then they said to him, he read their ideas. Isn't that kind of. Kind of intimidating when you know the Lord is reading your ideas? Physician, hear yourself.

And he said, no prophet is acceptable in his own country.

And then he began to read them, too. And he says, if you reject this, there are others who receive it. That made him mad. He quoted from First Kings, the ministry of Elijah, who went to the lady who. Widow of Zarephath, and there Elijah, she was fed with Elijah.

And there were other widows that he could have done miracles with out of country. And then he talked about Nathan. If you remember the story of Nathan, he was a successful general who was successful in every kind of way. And yet the one thing that he had was leprosy. He couldn't cure himself of leprosy.

And the leprosy began to grow and grow on him. And he knew that he was in trouble. And this little girl who had been captive by the army there and taken her, said, if you could just see Elisha, you might be saved. And so he goes and he comes with his great army that's there and comes into. And Elisha didn't even come out of the house, said, go duck yourself in the river, the Jordan river, seven times, and you will be cleansed.

And I wish. I wish I see some people that I'm praying for that I wish we could put them in some kind of method where they would be free of the cancer that they're fighting so hard.

And he went down and he ducked and he ducked and he ducked, and he hadn't been changed. And he almost said, I'm walking away. I've had enough. And somebody said to him, why don't you just give it another try? And so he did, and he was cleansed, totally cleansed.

But Jesus in his message said there were those outside that would receive it. And when he said that, this racial antagonism built up inside of them. And so they took him on a hillside and were about to throw him off. And if you have your bibles in verse, 29 and rose up and thrust him out of the city, led him into the brow of a hill on which the city was built, that they might cast him headlong. But here's what happened.

He passed through him. Cause it wasn't his time.

Now, if you had taken me out and were throwing me into the Alabama river, which I don't recommend by any means, I don't know if we can could get a committee that quick together. And besides, you get a Baptist committee, they can't agree for three years. But anyway, they.

But he didn't give up on Nazareth. I saw advertised a breakup pizza that Pizza Hut is offering that if you don't want a valentine to buy for your wife or you send her a breakup pizza and let her know that you're breaking up and you're ending this and it's going to be done. I don't want to give you any ideas about a breakup pizza. In fact, your husband. Let me encourage your husband.

Valentine is Wednesday. Do something. Whatever you do, do something. Make it good. Chocolate, flowers, whatever you know.

And she will say, I don't need anything. Well, you don't believe that. You better do something, man, because you're going to be in trouble even if you do it. It may be wrong, but at least you've done something. But Jesus doesn't give up on that.

He comes back two more times.

But each time he receives the same kind of rejection as his wall. Once you tell the Lord no, and you keep telling them no, that wall comes up and it becomes harder and harder and harder to penetrate.

Hebrews talks about some people that used to be so close and now they're far away. And he says, the writer of Hebrews, it's impossible to bring them back to that point when they've tasted of the kingdom, from felt God's presence. And God was right there with them to make that kind of decision. And they almost made that decision, but for some reason, whatever it was, they pulled away.

And once you pull away, it's harder and harder to bring you back to that place again. It will take a miracle to bring you back to that place. I read about a way you catch monkeys in Africa, so you might want to know this so that you won't catch any monkeys. You can have them around, but this is what they do. They take a jar of peanuts and they put it, tie it to a tree and then they pull back and then the monkeys come in and they find these peanuts in that jar and they will grab hold of those peanuts in that jar and they will hold onto em and then they come in, the hunters come in.

But they could be free if they could just let go of what they're holding onto. It's this fist. They can't get the fist out of there. And what the hunters do is they come and knock em on the head and drag them off into captivity. And I thought about how many people are holding on to some things that they need to let go of and it's holding them back from making that decision to follow the Lord.

And they're almost there, but they just won't let go of whatever those things are, whatever those fear is or whatever it is that they're holding onto. I would be a Christian, but.

And they hold on to some things they ought to let go of Nazareth. It could have been a place of miracle, but only a few miracles were done there because of their unbelief. Now would you bow your heads with me this morning, go to the Lord in prayer and I wonder if you know somebody who has almost made that decision, almost been there. They went to church somewhere and sometime in the service or maybe they were spoken to by a friend and they just came so close, they felt the Lord's presence and they felt the Lord kind of pulling them towards himself. And yet for whatever reason it was, whatever reason is, they stopped the process.

And it's getting harder and harder and they're getting further and further away. And I wonder if you've here today and I wonder if you've kind of made that and God pulling you in a direction and you know, you felt his presence in a certain place and yet you're holding back for whatever reason that might be there.

And yet God has called you and called you, but so often his voice gets weaker and weaker, not because he's getting weaker, but because faith pushes that back in another direction.

Father, I pray that you would be with us and help us to have enough courage to move when you're moving on a life because the danger of not moving is so powerful.

Keep us close to yourself and when you call us, help us to say yes and to make that move that comes down this aisle and says, I need to move in the direction God has moved me.

Father, we pray for that and pray that you would just touch our hearts today. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.