The Purpose of the Priest

It really is a fantastic season.
We get to spend the entire period, not just one day, not just December
25th, but an entire period of time from it seems as if the
moment Thanksgiving dinner ends until almost seems well into
the beginning of January. We celebrate this Christmas season
and we see all commercials that tell us what Christmas is about.
We see all sorts of different attire that people wear that
seem to symbolize the different things that Christmas stands
for. And we all know deep in our hearts and we understand
the roots of the Christmas story. Understanding that it was Jesus
coming in the flesh in His incarnation as God’s fulfillment of His promises
to us. But for us as Christians, what
does Christmas look like? Even let’s say for non-Christians,
what does Christmas look like? Is it just December 25th? Or
what else does it include? We know of all sorts of different
traditions that we celebrate and that we glorify. But where
did they come from? Did these things all originate
from God’s Word in the Bible? Or did they come from various
sources? Well, something that’s very interesting is many of the
traditions we celebrate or the things that we glorify during
this time are really a mesh between all different pagan holidays
and things that the churches put their stamp on. For example,
Santa Claus. We’ve all heard of Santa Claus
in one shape or another. But did we know that he’s actually
a variation of a Dutch folk tale coming from St. Nicholas? Now,
St. Nicholas was a tremendous man
and actually starting and originating in the church. He was a bishop
from what is now modern day Turkey. And the way he got started was
he used his entire inheritance to bless the needy. He went around
and gifted people who were not able to gift others. He gifted
people who weren’t able to provide for themselves. And it wasn’t
until really the 19th century in America that we created this
giant known as Santa Claus. That seems as if there’s five
or six cartoon specials every year about. Second thing, the
Christmas tree. Everybody’s got a Christmas tree
or most people do. Traditionally, you go out into
the forest and you cut yourself down a tree. Today, in many places,
we have a plastic one instead. That’s the perfect shape. And
you can show off from a distance. When people drive by in their
cars and look at your windows, they see this great tree and
they marvel. And yet they don’t know it’s probably polyester.
But Christmas and this Christmas tree really came from this evergreen
tree. This evergreen tree symbolizes
immortality. And this actually came from a
German winter festival. The Christmas tree didn’t originate
with Christ. It originated in the celebration
that the Germans would have called Yule, which glorified the God
Thor. And these Christmas trees, now
we decorate them, we put lights on them or a star or an angel
at the top. And what goes on here is we see
the eternality of Christ to this and we see within these Christmas
lights, we see the light of Christ being presented. So now in each
home, we have a living display. of the light of Christ and the
eternality of our God. In a recent Fort Collins City
vote, interestingly enough, the Christmas tree is a symbol that
is now allowed in public places around the city. Not the menorah,
not the nativity. And the reason for that is, is
not because of a free religious demonstration or because of free
exercise of certain faith system. It’s because now the Christmas
tree has been associated as a secular symbol. and anybody can use them.
We’ve lost our roots in what that stands for. Third thing,
my favorite, the candy cane. Candy cane, great piece of candy.
Everybody loves them, especially kids. And the development of
this candy is over a few hundred years. And you think, how can
a candy evolve and be such a powerful symbol in our day? Well, parents,
a long time ago, hundreds of years ago, used to give their
kids little white sugar sticks to suck on instead of rubber
pacifiers. That’s how they would satisfy
him. But in 1670, a choir master actually bent the sugar sticks
in the form of a shepherd’s staff. And that was a way during Christmas
that he could symbolize the Lord as his shepherd. And today, if
you look at it and you turn it upside down, you see it like
a J for Jesus, which is often looked at. But there’s different
coloration on it as well. There’s three little stripes
and the three little stripes symbolize the soldier’s stripes.
The Christ that we are set free from in his soldiers stripes
and his beatings that he took. And then there’s a big red stripe
on it. And that symbolizes the blood
of Christ that was shed on our behalf. And we have the white.
The white symbolizes a couple of things. The first is the virgin
birth and the second being the purity of Christ. Then there’s
a texture and taste. And who would have thought there
might be symbolism in those? But actually, there is the hardness
of the candy. represents Christ as being a
solid rock in the foundation of our lives, as well as the
sweetness symbolizing the sweet milk of the gospel that nourishes
us on a daily basis. And you think of the Puritans,
the Puritans moved over and we think of Puritans as very holy
folks. When they moved over a little after Columbus sailed the ocean
blue, they didn’t bring Christmas with them. Christmas rooted in
a mesh between these pagan holidays and the celebration of Christ.
And so they left it out. And if you look over the course
of history, Christmas has been celebrated at some points and
not others. You look at this candy cane,
you look at the Christmas tree, you look at Santa Claus and you
do see Christmas. You think of it today. But do
you necessarily think of Christ? A couple of years ago at our
college FCA group, We got a package of little tiny candy canes and
we stapled a little note to them at the bottom. And we wrote out
specifically what the candy cane stood for and why we were giving
it to people. And we went down to Old Town
Square and we handed them out to people. And many people loved
it. I didn’t want to take free candy.
And then some people would find out what was actually written
on this little note. And they look at it and say,
why are you doing this? And we would explain to them a little
bit and suddenly they would become hostile to it. You know, it’s
funny as if the candy changes somewhat because of the message
behind it. But Christmas didn’t become an American tradition,
a real economical, commercialized giant until just a few past hundred
years. And truly is incredible to see
all the momentum that’s been mustered up from this just in
the recent periods of time. But now as a Christian, as a
Christian, what sets us apart? What makes us holy? How do we
look at Christmas and what does Christmas stand for in our own
eyes? Many people would describe it,
if you ask them, as a season of giving. And that’s true, it
is. Or maybe it’s a winter festival, a time to just celebrate the
great weather, the great creation we’ve been given. Or maybe it’s
just an excuse where you have to go visit the in-laws. It’s
different things for different people. But at the past few weeks
really here, We’ve had some great modern day heroes of the faith
explain to us what Christmas is, what is this time all about. A couple of weeks ago, Trey came
up and he preached to us about the greatest gift. And what is
the greatest gift from God to all of mankind? He told us about
three glorious truths of the Messiah. The first being focusing
on Christ’s humble beginnings. Where He came from. The second
was Christ as a glorious ruler. How He ruled this earth. How
he was the son of man that was here not to be served, but to
serve and give his life as a ransom for many. And then thirdly, was
the eternal existence of Christ. And if we look in Colossians
2, 9, we see that the fullness of deity is in Christ Jesus,
that the entire universe has been compounded down into one
body and that one body has been given as a gift to us from God. But maybe the most striking thing
that Trey points out in that is that Christmas is not about
a baby in a manger. Christmas is not just about these
traditions. Christmas is specifically about
God fulfilling His promises to us, and the greatest of which
is sending His own Son to die for us on our behalf. The last
week, John Magnuson came up and preached to us about the Good
News. We looked at what it is. And he told us about the proclamation
of Christ, the heralding of Him, the classic Charlie Brown, Peanuts
message. And then the presentation of
Christ, how he came about, how he is, how he manifested himself
today into being the Messiah. And the third of all, the person
of Christ. And he left off opening the door is a perfect introduction
for me today. And he left off talking specifically
about what is the purpose of Christ? Why did he come here? What was he all about? So open
your Bibles, please, or turn in your bulletin to Luke chapter
four. And that’s where we will pick
it up today. Today, we’ll look at the four
purposes for Christ as our priest. So you have four blanks there
and you also have especially a generous portion there for
notes that you can take. This passage here in Luke 4 really
is between verses 14 to 30. You have to know those to get
the essence of what Luke’s talking about here, the significance
of this. Specifically, we’ll be spending our time mostly today
in verses 17, 18 and 19. And that is why those are listed
in your bulletin. So join me as we read these. Luke 4, 17,
the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling
it, he found the place where it is written, the spirit of
the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach the
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 and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Let’s pray before we look at
this. Father in heaven, Lord, We understand that You are our
glorious High Priest. God, that You are also our King.
We understand about many of these Christmas traditions. Father,
we understand that Your Word talks about a virgin birth. It
talks about an immaculate conception. God talks about the greatest
gift that You have ever given us in the presentation of Your
Son. Father, as we look in this Word today, we pray that You
will open our hearts and give us an understanding God, of what
was His mission? What was this Messiah’s job here
on earth? How did He do that? And then
how does He command us to respond in accordance with that? And
so, Father, we pray for a power of this message that You will
speak to us boldly today. God, that we know that You have
not given us a spirit of timidity, but one of power and boldness,
Father. And we pray that this Gospel message will be one that
will be clear and that will remain with us for the many days to
come. And so, Father, we glorify you
in this Christmas season, and we pray right now for an openness
and a concentration and a peace at heart and a humility to understand
this word of which we are not worthy. And we thank you, Father,
for this. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Let’s set the scene a little
bit. What is going on? When you first think of Luke
4, immediately you may think of the temptations of Christ,
his time in the desert, what he went through. This is the
afterthought of what happens after that. And we see this. We see Jesus of Nathareth. We
know He was born, raised in Galilee. Thirty years. He was a hometown
boy from there. People must have marveled at
His skill and carpentry and all these things, being the perfect
and inerrant Son of God. He must have been the perfect
Son for a mother and perfect for anyone to have around. But
we also, thus far in Luke, we’ve read about his genealogy. We
know where he came from. We know about the angel Gabriel
appearing to Mary. We know about John the Baptist
now preparing the way for him. And we also know about his baptism.
But this is the time where he steps up to the plate and he
begins to examine those questions and examine his life of who he
was created to be and how he’s going to live it. Verse 14 tells
us this, Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit and
the news about him spread through the whole countryside. Well,
he returned. Where did he go if he was born and raised in
Galilee? Like we said, he just come from the desert. He had
just come from a 40 day time in exile, a 40 day time with
nothing but Satan testing him, Satan offering him the world.
in hopes that he would slip up and abandon his mission. But
most notably, when you see this, you see some power here. He says
that he returned in the power of the Spirit. Now, returning
from this desert, he came back on a spiritual high. He came
back not only because he must have been in perfect, direct
communion with the Holy Spirit Himself, being God, but understanding
and an even greater confirmation of what his mission was. He says
he came back to Galilee He came back to his hometown. You think
of many of us when you go away for the first time. You go away,
you leave, maybe to college. You come back that first semester.
You’re so excited to see friends, long lost loved ones, to present
your new and improved self. They haven’t seen you in six
months. You must have changed. You’re an entirely different
person. Or often when you go away and you come back for the
summer and you see old family members, old neighbors. And you
try to portray this high and mighty or holy person that you
are, that you’ve changed or that you’ve been somehow been enlightened
over the past few months. But Jesus comes back. He comes
back in the power of the Spirit and he comes back to Galilee.
Now, his homecoming was a little bit different than this, as you’ll
see. Now, understanding Jesus and who he is and what he had
just done It’s no wonder that the good news about him, as we
see, was spreading throughout the whole countryside. He’d done
one thing of real significance up to this point. He committed
his first miracle. He had just changed water into wine. They
might say, I don’t know. I don’t know if I disagree with
you. I’ve read the first three chapters in Luke and it mentions
nothing about that. You’re out of order here. Luke’s
gospel. is not in chronological order. Luke’s gospel records things,
obviously, in the way he wanted to note them of importance. And
so we have to take special heed that this is the first thing
that he talks about. The first act of ministry is
the one we will examine today. Now, Jesus, at this point, is
beginning, is kicking off his Galilean ministry. You can really
separate the ministry of Christ into two chapters, one being
his Galilean, the second being his Judean. In Luke’s account,
the first nine chapters and 50 verses are devoted specifically
to his Galilean ministry. In verse 15, he tells us that
he taught in their synagogues and everybody praised him. Now,
we know Jesus taught and we know he taught in a variety of ways.
He modeled things and he preached things. And really, he had three
specific groups that he ministered to, three specific categories
that you can place the ministry of Christ into. One was the multitudes.
We found him oftentimes with large crowds around him and he’s
preaching the good news to him, giving him the fire, convicting
him of their sin. And the second was the twelve.
He had his own disciples. He had his own select few that
he took out and he brought in. He really poured into them. And
most of all, he had the few, he had Peter, James and John
and specifically Peter. that he poured his entirety into. And he said that he would base
the rock of the church, obviously off himself as the cornerstone,
but of giving Simon the name of Peter as the rock. But it
says here that he was in the synagogue, so we know he’s referring
to the multitude. But none of us are Jewish. So
what is a synagogue? Well, a synagogue, interestingly
enough, even though 2000 years ago, is what provides the foundational
roots for the local church today. If you could understand the order
of worship in a Jewish synagogue, you might not be lost at all.
It’s interesting. Typical Jewish synagogue, you
would start off singing psalms to God as worship. Same way we
do here. We crack open the hymnal and
shout praise to the Lord. The second thing they would do
is recite the Shema. The Shema Yisrael Adonai, Adohenu,
Adonai Ahad. Deuteronomy 6.4 translates that. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
And the people would stand and proclaim this to each other as
a confirmation of their covenant and a charge to their holiness.
Then they would have supplication, a series of prayers that they
would recite together, followed by the Shemana Ezra, where the
people would stand and recite 18 traditional blessings. Then
they would have two separate people recite specific readings
from the Torah and then specific readings from the prophets. And
then the sermon would come and the sermon would be given by
local rabbis the majority of the time, except for when there
was a well-known visitor passing through. They would give them
the honor of presenting for them. And so if you often notice, it
talks about Jesus speaking in the synagogues or even the Apostle
Paul preaching in the synagogues. You may wonder, how did they
have this opportunity to be invited everywhere and to go everywhere?
Well, Jesus, in his power and in his authority that he taught
with, he was given many opportunities to do this. And so he would give
these sermons and go from town to town. And the first place
he would go is the synagogue, because that would be his platform
to preach with. And then lastly, the final benediction.
And this is where the people would stand and the rabbi would
give the priestly benediction to the people. The synagogue
is much different than the holy temple. Mostly when you think
of Jewish church, you think of the holy temple, when you think
of sacrifices and large groups of people. Well, these synagogues
would always face the temple and really was the establishment
of the local church today. Now, even Fort Collins, Colorado
today, we have dozens of churches meeting. We have no one sacred
holy temple. But yet we do have the worship
of God and God’s people in many different places. And so we see
here, Jesus is now beginning at his home synagogue. He comes
home, his homecoming, getting ready to preach. And in verses
16 to 19, he says this. So 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. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah
was handed to him and unrolling it, he found the place where
it is written. The spirit of the Lord is on me. Because he
has anointed me to preach the 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 and
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. He’s quoting Isaiah here.
He’s quoting Isaiah 61, 1 and 2. As they did, the people knew
the book. They knew it inside and out. They knew the prophets.
They knew the Torah. And so they had heard dozens
of messages on this. The most common topic was the coming of
the Messiah, the coming of the warrior king that would free
them from enslavement. And here Christ has just laid
out for them the perfect summary of the job of their priest, of
the job of the Messiah. And the people had heard many
sermons about the age to come. But what was interesting is they
were actually living in that age at that time. They heard
plenty of servants about the Messiah. Now they were hearing
one directly from him himself. Let’s read verse 18 again. And
here it is clear the four purposes of the priest. The Spirit of
the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach the
good news. He has sent me to proclaim freedom
for the prisoners, to recover sight for the blind and to release
the oppressed. So the first of our points is
this, that he came to preach the good news to the poor. You
hear good news and gospel used interchangeably today, and that’s
what it is. The gospel is the good news. But what the good
news is not is this. It’s not our satisfied unfulfillment. You think about this. You hear
the song that we’ve all got a God-shaped hole inside of us. And that’s
true. We have an emptiness without God filling that up. But yet
the gospel is not one that if you are tired or things just
aren’t great in your life, that invite Christ in and everything
will be peachy. That’s the message that we hear today is Jesus is
a product. All you need is Him and you’ll be happy. He’s a late
night infomercial that will satisfy you forever. That’s not the case
at all. He’s also saying you don’t need
to be in a cheerful mood here and it’s not about being a good
person. This is the Gospel of God talking specifically about
the forgiveness of our sins. This is the greatest message
that has ever been given to us. And this Gospel is for a specific
group of people. It’s the poor. So what does this
mean? Those who make a certain benchmark
salary a year aren’t invited to this gospel? Absolutely not.
He’s not dealing with economic or even that social poverty.
He’s dealing specifically with a spiritual poverty. Great example
of this, Luke 18. You see the Pharisee and the
tax collector praying to God. And the Pharisee stands there
and he says, oh, thank you, God, that you did not make me like
this evil tax collector here. that I’m good in your sight and
that I’m not like that guy. And the tax collector standing
there can’t even open his eyes and look up and is beating his
chest because he realizes his unworthiness, his spiritual poverty
before God. The rich young ruler as well.
The rich young ruler comes to Jesus and says, what do I have
to do to be saved? It’s a million dollar question. What do I have
to do to go to heaven? Very simple command. Obey my commands. And you have it. And he says,
yeah, yeah, but I’ve done all that. The arrogance right there. And Jesus tells him, just go
sell your possessions, that’s all you got to do. And the man goes away
sad because he did not see his spiritual poverty. He did not
see his need to give up everything into entering heaven. Tells us
that it is easier for the camel to enter the eye of a needle
than the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And so think of this
in your own hearts. If you have never looked at yourself
as one who is spiritually bankrupt, that you have nothing, that you
have nothing before God, that you’re not a good person, that
you’re actually a vile person, that you have nothing to offer
God and you are so unworthy that He would even call you an adopted
child, then you can understand what it means to be spiritually
rich, but not before then. The second point is this, that
He came to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. People go to prison
often. You see an MSNBC special on investigative
reporting on prison and why people are there and all about the rehabilitation
process. But I think the fact of the matter
is pretty clear. People go to prison for punishment. Now, God
has us in punishment for our sin in Adam, that it entered
the world and now we suffer that. And how do we suffer that as
prisoners? Because we’re not locked up behind bars that we
can see. Guilt. Uncertainty. And most of all,
think of a bondage to sin. Think of sin. There’s just no
answer for. It seems like every time you
try to deal with an addiction or every time you try to deal
with a struggle, you’re running up a hill that you can’t see
the top of. This is the type of prison that the ungenerated,
regenerated heart lives in. We’re all captives. Every single
one of us is death row inmates. We’re all living this life waiting
for a sentence that’s going to come at the end. But the sentence
for some is different than the sentence for others. Some live
their lives in remorse, just awaiting an execution. And others
take every day as a gift from the Most High to go make a difference,
to go bring this message to the poor and to the imprisoned. And
to an outsider, and every one of us at one point in time was
an outsider to this good news. We look at the gospel as what?
It’s very simply this. It’s a hindrance towards a life
of freedom. We hear that in the Spirit of the Lord there is freedom.
For somebody that doesn’t know or doesn’t understand God, this
couldn’t be farther from the truth. Understanding a Christian worldview
can seem to many as just someone that is free and not needing
a set of rules or regulations to hinder their freedom or their
pursuit of hedonism. And what this is, is just like
a person who doesn’t understand what world they’re living in.
Every one of us is born into a bondage of rebellion against
God that we can’t ourselves get out of. Now, people will hear
this and say, that’s not me. I wasn’t born into rebellion
of God. I have nothing short. I’m a good person. I’m a happy
person. I live my life. I do good for
others. Everything is great. Well, I wonder if we went to
the morgue and we took out a body and we strapped him up in chains
and we laid an anchor on his chest. Would that person feel
the weight of that seal? Absolutely not. The person’s
dead. That person is absolutely 100 percent dead. And that’s
the same as a sinner’s heart. Has no sensation to the weight,
to the captivity, to the pain, to the imprisonment that they’re
living in. Thirdly, the recovery of sight
for the blind. A person that does not know God
believes they look at this world, what it’s all about with 20-20
vision. And they think it’s actually the Christian that needs to wake
up and smell the coffee. The Christian that needs to get
a real picture of what this world is all about. So what has God
done to that person? Well, John 12, 40 tells us this,
that God has blinded the sinner. It says that He has blinded their
eyes and deadened their hearts so that they can neither see
with their eyes nor understand with their hearts. See, there’s
no such thing as darkness. I’ll say that again. such thing
as darkness. Darkness is simply this is the
absence of light. And that’s exactly what God has
done. He has not chosen to reveal himself to those who have suppressed
the truth and turn away from him. John 3, 19 actually tells
us what an unbeliever thinks of that. It says the unbelievers
hate the light. They love the darkness. Think
of the Apostle Paul before his conversion. What did the Apostle
Paul live for? He was Saul. And he was a Pharisee
of Pharisees. He had everything to boast for
as a righteous Jew. And he went around and he persecuted
Christians. And he killed them. And he hated
Christ. He wanted nothing more than to
devote his life as a missionary to kill the spread of Christianity
and the message of the Gospel. Something interesting happens
to him. In Acts 26, 17-18 records this for us. Jesus speaks to
Paul and He says this, He says, I will rescue you from your own
people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open
their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the
power of Satan to God so that they may receive forgiveness
of sins and a place by those who are sanctified by faith in
Me. That should be the story of every
single one of our lives. is that there comes a point in
time like the prodigal son where we come to our senses and we
realize that we’ve been living in darkness, that we are no longer
to be called God’s son, and that we are not even worthy to become
a servant in His kingdom. Fourthly, He came to release
the oppressed. Now, the Jews, tried, they tried
diligently to keep the law of God and they did it in such a
legalistic way that, of course, the byproduct of this is oppression. When you try to live up to the
law in a perfect standard and base your merit and your self-worth
on what is it, on how well you attain God’s holy standard, you’re
doomed to failure and you’re doomed to oppression. And those
that might have on the outside lived up a little bit closer
than those on the inside, were the ones causing this oppression
many times. See, Jesus Christ came and He
started preaching this gospel of mercy and grace. And to the
Pharisees, this is absolute foolishness. To many Jews, this is blasphemy.
They didn’t want to see mercy. They didn’t want to see somebody
receive grace. They wanted to see somebody get
righteous judgment. But think of this. It’s easy
to point the finger at the Pharisees and think about how awful they
were, how terrible their hearts were. But I bet if you look at
your life, you’ll see yourself as a Pharisee. Every single one
of us has sin, deep sin in our lives, to one degree or another.
But it seems as if oftentimes we get so hot and bothered about
the sin of our neighbor, and we get so mad, and thinking about,
I just wish they would stop doing that, or they’re just living
in sin and they don’t know it in that area. And we think as
if we now become their Savior. We now become their standard
of what to achieve. That’s a lie. But that is the
way we view ourselves oftentimes. God could not let us have the
full weight of our sin. He could not reveal that to us.
It would kill us. We are blind to much of our own sin today.
But the bit that He does reveal to us daily, it’s our responsibility
to look at our hearts, to examine ourselves, and to repent of that
before a holy God. See, we are the oppressed people
that have been delivered. Paul, in the end of Romans 7,
talks about a war in his life that we all suffer with. A war
where he just knows what he wants to do. He wants to keep the law.
And he wants to do good. But there’s something within
him that just fights this war. That he can’t do it. That he
falls short. That he struggles. And he says, what am I going
to do? What is the solution to this? And then the first verse
of Romans 8 tells us, therefore, there is now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. There’s no guilt. There’s no
shame. There’s no bit of uncertainty. There’s no captivity that he
can’t free and that he can’t give us full redemption from.
The Spirit of the Lord is on me. He has anointed me to preach
the Good News to the poor, sent me to proclaim freedom for the
prisoners and recovery for sight for the blind, to release the
oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This
is Jesus in His hometown synagogue quoting Isaiah 61, 1 and 2, except
He misses it. He leaves out the second half
of verse 2 in Isaiah. He who is the Word misquotes
the Word. How does that happen? How could
Christ, the perfect Son of God, blow it? How could He miss it?
The truth is He didn’t miss it. He left it out on purpose. The
phrase missing there is the day of vengeance. It says that He
came to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day
of the Lord’s vengeance. But He left it out for a certain
reason. Because we talked about these people. The Jews, they
were looking for a warrior king that would come and bring judgment
on the Gentiles and reward them for their faithfulness like the
nation of Israel. And he leaves it out. And you’ll
see the people’s reaction later. But why does he do this? The
day of vengeance for our God. What is the people’s reaction
to this? Verse 22, The people all spoke well of him and were
amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. The
hometown boy was coming home and preaching the word and they
loved it. And they were listening. They were listening to why he
left that out. And they didn’t know at first.
But he tells us this in the verse before, he says, today, the Scripture
is fulfilled in your hearing. See, he gets up there, gives
them the message that Isaiah gave them about the coming of
Christ, the coming of the Messiah, and says, today the Scripture
is fulfilled in your hearing. He tells them, it’s Me. I’m the
one you’ve been waiting for. It’s Me. And what is the people’s
reaction? They turn to their left. They
turn to their right. And they say, isn’t this Joseph’s
son? That might have happened to many
of us, maybe to a different degree. But many of us come home for
the holidays with a changed heart, a sanctified heart, knowing God
a little more. And something’s different about
us. And they look at us and say, isn’t that the guy I used to
know? Isn’t that the girl I used to know that was in all that?
What happened to them? This can’t be them. And Jesus
knows though, He knows exactly what they’re thinking. At this
point, if you want to make a bold enough claim that you are the
Messiah, you better have proof. And so they’re looking around,
questioning, not knowing what to do next. They’ve enjoyed everything
He’s said up to this point. And he says, I know what you’re
thinking. He says, 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. We want proof. We always want proof. Doubting
Thomas, right? He wanted proof. He wanted to
touch the risen Christ. Now, I don’t care what Jesus has said.
Unless I get to touch Him, unless I get to see Him myself, He’s
not real. It’s not the way He is. Or think
about it maybe even when you didn’t know the Lord, how much
easier you thought it would be if God would you just come and
maybe just speak to me personally, you know, audibly or show me
a real sign. That way it’d be real easy for
me to follow you. You know, that would just do it for me. Then
I’d give it all up for you. See, we always beg for proof.
We always beg for miracles. And if we look, the road signs
are as clear as they could ever be. Now, we did miracles. And many people always offer
the miracles of Christ as the proof of there is no other explanation
other than God for this. I would agree with that. But
if you think about it, miracles don’t prove a thing. You can
do a miracle. Well, you can’t do a miracle.
But a miracle does not prove that the Son of God came down
to raise people from the dead into eternal pleasure and paradise. That doesn’t prove that. Luke
16. Let’s look there real quickly.
Let’s look there. The rich man and Lazarus. Just as a paraphrase,
I will show you this, that the rich man was a man that lived
in luxury. And he had a feast on his table. And a beggar comes up to his
gates just begging for a crumb. He just wanted a little bit.
The dogs were running around scavenging all that he had. laid
up at the end of his life, laid up against the iron bars and
had sores on his face. He had no money. He was unhealthy. And the rich man laughs. And
the dogs come over and begin to lick the sores on his face.
And soon enough, they both come to the end of their life. And
Lazarus finds himself in one place and the rich man in quite
another. And the rich man finds himself in eternal torment, and
he just says, Father Abraham, send Lazarus your servant to
quench this fire that I have. Painting us a picture of that
place. And he says something. He says,
you know, you were rich on earth. And you thought you were really
rich on earth. And Lazarus had nothing. He had absolutely nothing.
And so now he has much and you have little. And the rich man
says, I’ve blown it. But just please, please do me
a favor. Go to my family. Go to my hometown. I don’t want them to make the
same mistake I made. I don’t want them to come and
join me here. I want them to be freed from this. Just send
them a messenger from the dead and surely they’ll believe. Show
them a miracle and they’ll believe, no doubt about it. And how does
He respond to them? He says, If they do not listen
to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if
somebody rises from the dead. See, if we don’t believe the
gospel message, the word that is taught to us in this book,
the words of Christ Himself, then there’s no sign, there’s
no wonder, there’s no audible voice that is going to turn us
and change our hearts. I used to debate regularly a
philosophy professor at Colorado State. And once a week, I’d go
in this man’s office. It was the last class I took
my senior year. And it was the philosophy of morality taught
by an atheist. And every single week I’d go
up and I would ask him a simple question. I would say, give me
your reasons as to why you cannot believe. And he would list all
these different intellectual questions. And so I would take
him, I would research him, I would come back the following week
and I would answer every single one of his questions. And then
finally, near the end of the semester, it came down to it
and I answered it. And he said, you know, the real problem I
have is just this idea of good and evil. I can’t handle that.
And I said, that’s exactly it. I said, you can see signs. You
can be taught the message. You can hear everything that
you need to hear. You can have every question answered that you would
ever have. But you don’t believe because of the pride in your
heart. You cannot accept that you are a sinner fallen from
grace and that you can’t do anything on your own. And that’s how we
ended it. Because there’s a point where
you realize that you just can’t do anymore but pray. And that
you can’t show anybody more signs, but that still doesn’t prohibit
us from trying, from going and taking that good news, that great
commission out to all of the nations. We want proof. Eyewitnesses don’t doubt miracles. They understand them. But they
can’t make the transfer from their minds to their hearts.
So really, if you look at these four people groups, they’re really
down into one. You see, they’re all classified
by these people that Christ shows us of people that don’t know
God. The oppressed, the poor, the
prisoners, the blind. All metaphors for people that
don’t understand God, or maybe do know Him, but don’t know Him
as they should. Don’t know Him as they’re commanded
to. And what’s the reaction of the people here in verse 28? It says that they were absolutely
furious when they heard this. The people were furious that
Jesus would not give them the proof. That He said that a prophet
is not accepted in his hometown. That little Jesus, the baby in
the manger, the carpenter’s son, couldn’t give them the proof.
And so they wanted to kill Him. They wanted to throw Him off
of a cliff. So this message touches your
heart a little bit. Think of this. Are you somebody
that’s mad, frustrated, uncertain, often guilty about your relationship
with God not being in the right place? Then this is the perfect
place and this is the perfect word for you. Because if we are
the church of Jesus Christ, then we carry the message. We carry
the good news that there is no greater treasure in all the world.
Jesus can free us from our poverty. He can free us from our captivity.
He can open our eyes and He can free our souls. So think about
it. This Christmas season, there’s no miracles, there’s no signs
you can do other than have your changed life. But you have the
opportunity to carry the good news to those around you, to
those you love, and those you hate, which we are commanded
to do. But what are you going to do? Are you going to hold
this message of truth within you? Are you going to eat the
candy cane? Are you going to pass one out
and forget to tell people? The price that was paid and where
that came from, where the hardness came from, where the stripes
came from, why that shepherd’s staff is there. This Christmas
season passes for many and they don’t even take a moment to look
at the fulfilled promises of God. That it’s not about the
traditions. It’s not about the gifts. It’s
not about December 25th. It’s about a season celebrating
the incarnation of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins that
we might have eternal life with God and spend eternity in His
glory for His glory as the ultimate fulfillment of the promise He
gives us. So we have to thank God that
He loves us so much that there’s nothing that we can do about
it to screw it up. I close with this verse, 1 John
3.16. This is how we know what love is. that Christ Jesus laid down His
life for us. So there’s the question. Would
we do the same? Are we the Pharisee that looks
at others’ sin before we look at our own? Are we the Pharisee
that passes over the own garbage in our own life? Because we’re
not ready to deal with our own spiritual bankruptcy, our own
spiritual poverty, our own blindness and the own oppression in our
hearts. And the question is if we do know that, Jesus tells
us that the way He knows that we love Him is if we obey His
commands. And one of His commands is to
go out and give this news. If the purpose of the priest
was to preach the news, to do these things to these four people
groups in these four ways, and we call ourselves Christians
to mean to be Christ-like, then what are we doing to live up
to that message and carry out that ministry? Let’s examine
our hearts. Father in heaven, Lord, we are
completely unworthy of this gospel. God, we are so oftentimes still
blind, still imprisoned in things, still have a lack of understanding
of who you call us to be and ultimately who you’ve created
us to be. Lord, let us take a special note in this Christmas season,
Father, of all the traditions You’ve given us, God, that interestingly
enough, they all seem to come back to You in some way or another.
And so help us, Lord, not get caught up in the hoopla, but
to remember that You fulfill Your promises. And so, God, we
pray that we might be enabled when we leave this place to love
You in a greater way. Because, God, we are just not
worthy of the love that You show us. And so we thank You so much
for this morning. And we pray, God, that we will
do everything in our power to begin now to give You glory,
God, for everything in our life. For our family. For that time
with the in-laws. For the gifts under the tree.
For the celebrations and the traditions. All coming back to
You as a way of saying thanks for the incomparable price that
You paid so that we might know You as our own Lord and Savior. We thank You so much for this
morning, in Jesus’ name, Amen.