You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.
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Turn with me this morning to Luke chapter 4.
Luke 4.
We have seen recently in Luke's gospel, Jesus as the promised Messiah, the beloved Son of
God.
Seen Him confirmed in that identity through His faithful obedience and temptation, right?
As He succeeded in the wilderness and the places that we have failed.
Ron did such a great job with that, walking us through that.
This morning we look at a passage where Jesus lays out His plan for public ministry.
He gives the blueprint for kingdom ministry, you could say.
This is what I'm going to do as the anointed deliverer, moving the kingdom of God forward.
Here's what it's going to look like.
It's a really helpful outline and list of priorities that the gospel story bears out.
We're going to see themes we talk about this morning time and time again through the gospel
of Luke.
Luke.
And Jesus sticks to His promises in His ministry as Luke 4 becomes a consistent pattern for
Jesus.
And of course then for His church as well.
What does kingdom ministry look like for us?
If we're to be His followers, then our role is to see His kingdom advanced.
And He's the one who shows us and tells us what that's going to look like, right?
What things should characterize the ministry of Southwood Presbyterian Church?
What things should characterize the lives of her members?
That sounds easy and exciting, right?
What's it all going to be like?
Tell us the plan.
Let's go.
Well, listen as we read because some of the people who first heard the plan were excited
too.
By the end of the day though, they wanted to kill Jesus rather than follow His plan.
Read with me this remarkable day, Luke 4 at verse 14.
This is God's holy word.
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee and a report about Him went through
all the surrounding country.
And He taught in their synagogues being glorified by all.
And He came to Nazareth where He had been brought up and as was His custom, He went to the synagogue
on the Sabbath day and He stood up to read.
And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him.
He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to
the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
And He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.
And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him.
And He began to say to them,
Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
And all spoke well of Him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from His mouth.
And they said,
Is not this Joseph's son?
And He said to them,
Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb,
Physician, heal yourself.
What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.
And He said,
Truly I say to you,
No prophet is acceptable in his hometown.
But in truth,
I tell you there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah
when the heavens were shut up three years and six months
and a great famine came over all the land.
And Elijah was sent to none of them,
but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon,
to a woman who was a widow.
And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha.
And none of them was cleansed,
but only Naaman the Syrian.
When they heard these things,
all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.
And they rose up and drove him out of the town
and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built,
so that they could throw him down the cliff.
But passing through their midst,
he went away.
Thus far, God's holy word.
Let's pray and ask for His help.
Father, that is our heart.
That is the posture in which we come to Your word,
needing Your help.
We don't just need help to understand the words
and to make sense of them.
We need Your help, Holy Spirit.
That they might have their intended impact on our hearts.
That they might show us our sin.
That they might show us our Savior.
That we might see and hope in Him.
That we might be changed as a result of meeting with You.
Holy Spirit, speak.
Would You speak even through one such as me,
who wrestles and struggles with this passage,
perhaps more than anyone else in the room.
Would You use me to speak?
Would You speak to me by Your Spirit
and also through me,
that we might hear Your voice.
That's our need,
to hear from You.
And so we ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So Jesus begins His public ministry here,
traveling around to different towns.
And regularly when He gets there,
He's teaching, right?
Particularly His habit is going to the synagogue on the Sabbath day.
That's where you find Jesus.
He's showing up to teach.
So many sermons,
Luke doesn't record all of them,
but He gives us one particular account here from Nazareth,
Jesus' hometown.
So this first sermon kind of sets the agenda,
is the blueprint,
His priorities for His ministry,
how God's kingdom is going to come.
There are priorities that are to be hopeful and exciting,
just as we've been promised already in the Gospel of Luke.
There's good stuff coming.
Jesus says,
here's the message,
the time has come.
What you've been waiting for,
those last days you've heard promised
through the Old Testament Scriptures,
they're here.
Salvation is coming,
now,
through me.
That's what He's declaring.
It's really exciting, right?
What they've all been waiting for.
Don't forget these priorities as we go through Luke,
because this is the paradigm that Jesus is setting up.
Priorities for kingdom ministry.
First,
the ministry of His kingdom begins,
and ends,
with a Christ-centered focus.
Look what He selects from the prophet Isaiah,
verse 18.
He opens to Isaiah 61,
and says,
the Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
And Jesus reads that,
and then He rolls up the scroll that He's been given.
He gives it back to the synagogue leader,
as He would every week.
And then this is what happens.
In these synagogues,
you stand for the reading of God's Word,
and then you sit down to give the sermon.
I'm not going to put that into practice this morning.
You might feel a little awkward.
But you sit down to preach.
So that's what Jesus does.
And everyone's looking to Him.
What's He going to say now?
And He began this way,
today,
this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
Notice what He's saying in the passage that He selected from Isaiah.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
He has anointed me.
He has sent me
to do all of these things.
And Jesus, having read that,
says,
today,
this Scripture about me,
fulfilled in your hearing.
That's where the kingdom begins, right?
The anointed one,
the promised Messiah,
the King has come.
And the ministry of the kingdom
never goes forward apart from the King.
That sounds obvious, right?
Well, that was really profound.
But we can never lose sight of that.
Churches can do lots of things.
We can have a lot of fun doing a lot of things.
But if we're not about the worship of King Jesus,
the proclamation of King Jesus,
the demonstration of the impact of King Jesus on our lives and our world,
then it's not kingdom ministry that we're doing.
You can't have the kingdom without the King.
He sets the agenda.
He provides the grace.
He gets the glory.
And no one else.
Everything we do and say corporately must point to Him,
not the preacher.
Everything we do and say individually must point to Him,
not the church member.
We live in His strength rather than our own
and for His glory rather than our own.
Secondly, the ministry of the kingdom features both word and deed.
Constantly, the kingdom has a message to proclaim
and an impact to make.
It sounds like something and it feels like something.
Maybe the most obvious parallel is in the descriptions in verse 18.
You'll see right there Jesus has been sent to proclaim liberty
and then later to provide liberty, to set at liberty.
He is both announcing it and bringing it.
He's announcing that there's good news
and He's actually bringing it into existence to reality.
The word aspect of the kingdom,
constantly present as Jesus, as He is here,
preaches and teaches,
calls to repentance,
offers eternal hope,
proclaims the good news of salvation.
And the deeds accompany the words.
He actually cures sick people
while promising healing.
He actually feeds hungry people
while proclaiming Himself as the bread of life.
He actually eats with the poor and the oppressed
while teaching love for a neighbor, right?
Do you see the priority of word and deed together?
There's a message to proclaim here.
Good news, the King is here.
Forgiveness for the worst sinner.
Freedom for those in bondage.
Jubilee for the biggest debtors.
That's a strange word, right?
Jubilee, where'd you get that?
That's what the hearers in that Jewish synagogue
would have heard when Jesus read
the year of the Lord's favor
at the end of verse 19.
Jubilee, right?
Every 50 years, debts forgiven.
Slave set free.
Land returned to the owner.
All of those things happening
because the message must be accompanied
by an experience of the same thing.
A foretaste of glory.
Let me say it this way.
Forgiveness as the message
can feel like a friend or a family member
who finds you in shame and hiding
and patiently accepts you
and stays with you even in the midst of your struggle.
Forgiveness can feel like that.
Freedom can feel like societal systems
that treat you equally
regardless of your race or your background.
Jubilee as the message can feel
like communities who welcome a refugee
or an outsider
and help him find a place to fit in.
Hearing about King Jesus
and experiencing the reality of King Jesus
must go together.
Think about the priority of word and deed
together in terms of marriage reconciliation.
We know that this would be true.
It's a good picture of it for us.
Imagine Billy and Sally are married
and Billy has an affair
and Sally finds out.
But they want to work things out.
And so the message Billy needs to communicate
is love.
Right?
But we know talk is cheap.
That's what we say.
If Billy just begins to say 30 times a day,
I love you, I love you, I love you.
But nothing ever changes in the way he acts.
He's doing all of the same things
that he has been doing.
His words, the message won't be believed, will it?
It'll fall on deaf ears.
But the opposite is true too.
If Billy starts washing the dishes all the time,
even when they're not dirty,
and he starts doing everything that Sally wants
and trying to be this perfect husband,
and yet he still spews hatred towards her
and says hateful things all of the time,
it won't work.
The deeds will fall flat.
They'll seem fake.
In fact, even if he's just silent
and never once says,
I love you,
she'll start to wonder about the message
all these kind deeds are communicating,
won't she?
If she says to him,
I love you,
and his response is to ignore it
or just to smile and carry on,
she's going to begin to wonder,
what's this game?
What's he up to with all these things he's doing?
He won't even tell me that he loves me.
If the message is love,
word and deed must go together.
You can't neglect either.
In Jesus' kingdom,
it's always word and deed.
We're going to see that
throughout the Gospel of Luke.
So one last priority of kingdom ministry
here in this passage.
It runs graciously toward the needy
to provide help.
Whether it's words or deeds,
who's the object of all of these things
that Jesus is doing in his ministry
here in this passage?
Look at verse 18 again.
Who is it that's going to receive
all of the things Jesus is doing?
Proclaim good news to the poor.
Proclaim liberty to the captives.
Recovering of sight to the blind.
Set at liberty,
those who are oppressed.
The poor,
the captives,
the blind,
the oppressed.
Later in the conversation,
he'll use examples of a hungry widow,
a desperate leper.
This is the reality of the jubilee
Jesus is proclaiming.
The playing field is leveled,
right?
It's reset.
It's another evidence
of what we've been talking about
as the theme of Luke.
Good news of great joy for whom?
For all people.
And that's exciting, right?
Hopefully you feel a little bit
of what Jesus' audience
apparently felt when they heard it.
Awesome!
The Messiah is here.
Good things are happening.
Needs are being met.
This sounds great.
Good news for all sorts of people.
I'm so excited, Jesus.
They all responded that way.
But apparently,
this is also the tipping point
for the Jews in the synagogue.
They're riding high, right?
Excitement is palpable in the pews.
I'm sure they had pews in the synagogue.
In fact,
the guy behind all of this
is Joseph's son, right?
This is our guy.
We know him.
He grew up here.
All of a sudden,
here's our hometown hero.
We're gonna be on the inside.
You used to say,
what good could possibly come from Nazareth?
You won't say that anymore.
The guy we've all been waiting for,
he's our guy.
We're gonna be connected.
This is our big chance.
They're so excited.
He's got them right there.
He could say anything he wanted.
They'd do anything he asks.
And all I can think is,
Jesus must have passed
the magical 30-minute mark
in his sermon,
and they all just turned against him.
Like,
that's not what happened.
It's actually something
much more intentional
in Jesus' words,
because he senses
this opportunistic desire
from the crowd.
He can tell they're thinking,
yes,
good news of great joy
for all of us.
All of us who've been waiting.
We've been promised
that there was something exciting coming.
That's what we've been waiting for,
Jesus.
And he says,
you need to understand,
I mean all people.
Gentile dogs,
as you call them.
Outsiders.
I'm not here to fulfill Scripture
only in Nazareth,
but all over,
and you won't like me for it,
he says.
Let me make sure you're hearing me.
Like the prophet Elijah
bringing the kingdom
to the Gentile widow.
Like the prophet Elisha
bringing the kingdom
to the Gentile leper.
I'm here to run toward
those kind of needy outsiders.
And it sends them over the edge,
doesn't it?
They can't take it.
When Jesus runs graciously
toward needy outsiders,
some who want to be insiders
feel left out.
They're so outraged, in fact,
at this priority of Jesus' kingdom
that they go from cheering him
to chasing him out of town
in order to kill him.
You see, these Jews lived
in a culture of a hierarchical
social order.
Some people were in,
others were out.
Even in the synagogue
where they're sitting
listening to Jesus,
where you sat in the synagogue
was determined
based on your gender,
your birth,
the qualifications
that you had achieved
in your life.
This structure of society
and your social rank
determined where you sat to eat,
to whom you spoke
or didn't speak,
what kind of work you did
or didn't do.
This is the world
in which they lived.
And they,
those listening to Jesus,
they were the religious insiders,
weren't they?
They were there in the synagogue
and that religious insider status
must be maintained.
So they'd been rejoicing, right?
After all these years,
I'm finally getting
what has been coming to me.
And they are finally getting
what has been coming to them.
And then they realized
it was all social outsiders
that Jesus mentioned
coming to bless.
And it wasn't just an accident,
He really meant it.
It was no accident
that Jesus left out
that verse at the end
in Isaiah 61
to proclaim the year
of the Lord's favor
and they know what was next
and the day of vengeance
of our God.
The Jews were ready
for all the outsiders
to get what was coming to them
that day of vengeance.
And Jesus says,
that day is coming,
but not yet.
First, I'm running with grace
towards them.
And the Jews can't stand it.
They're outraged.
They run Him towards a cliff
in order to kill Him.
When I first read this passage,
I thought to myself,
oh, that's good
because I don't struggle with that.
And neither does Southwood.
We love God's grace.
We love to see Him work.
We love needy people
to hear and feel
the reality of the kingdom.
Of course,
we would never begrudge
the kingdom moving
somewhere over there,
would we?
But I love to be an insider.
I love to get special treatment,
even if it's free food
at a football game.
It makes me feel special
and important.
And most of us
are like the people
in the synagogue,
religious insiders.
We were either born that way
or we've become that way.
How do we as insiders
struggle with the priorities
of kingdom ministry
when Jesus runs graciously
toward needy outsiders
and we feel left out?
How does that happen
in our hearts?
Does it?
Often in my heart,
it's comparison.
Here's one example
from your pastor
that I struggled with this week.
I noticed kingdom ministry
happening somewhere else.
Even at another church in town,
people flocking there
and baptisms all over the place
and the spirit seems to be moving
and I say,
man, I don't feel excited about that.
Instead of rejoicing,
I'm resentful
because you see,
they have bad theology
and I have good theology.
God, why are you blessing them
with all their bad theology
when I've got better training
and better understanding
of your word?
All of a sudden,
I'm not happy
Jesus is being praised
over there
because I'm not.
And God says,
oh, by the way,
did you want to talk
about theology?
Because your idea
that my spirit works
only in places
with more accurate theology,
there's maybe the first bit
of bad theology you have.
Maybe your theology
is not so good
as you thought it was.
I think in comparison
to someone else,
I deserve more from God
and I don't.
And I resent Him for that.
So did the Jews
with the Gentiles.
Imagine, ladies,
that girl you competed with
all through high school.
Academically,
athletically,
socially,
you know who I'm talking about.
Y'all were always rivals
and competing for things.
But she was a mean girl
and you were the moral girl.
You always had that on her.
She did things
you never would have spoken of
and you stayed clean.
In fact,
she edged you out
for valedictorian
because she did some bonus work
while you were on a mission trip.
It's terrible.
You've always kind of
held that against her.
But then someone at your church
took the idea seriously
of going and sharing Jesus
with everyone,
especially outsiders.
And they talked to her
and she met Jesus.
And she came to your church
and everybody got so excited
about her.
Like it was such a big deal.
In fact,
when she came to Jesus,
part of that process
was watching God
heal her mom of cancer.
And you lost your mom
to cancer.
Even though you prayed.
Way more.
Not fair, God.
If you're not frustrated yet,
she has a fourth grade daughter
just like you do.
And when she and all of her other
unchurched friends
came to heyday,
they took all the candy
so your kid didn't get
to go home with any.
But you were actually okay with that
because not a big deal.
Their health,
you know,
kids are going to be healthy
so they didn't really need the candy.
But what's worse is
she came to their Sunday school class
and now your daughter's coming home
from church complaining
because she's lonely.
And the other girl
has taken all her friends.
And you're outraged.
God, this was my church.
I prayed more.
I've served longer.
I deserve.
I ought.
It's there in our hearts too,
isn't it?
When we see ourselves
compared to others
and we think we deserve
something more than they do.
It shows up not only in comparison
but in my consumerism.
It's what the Jews say
when they're saying,
physician, heal yourself.
Jesus, do miracles.
Heal people here.
We want our issues handled.
Defeat the Gentiles ruling over us.
Don't rescue them.
You're supposed to be conquering them.
It's about us.
And we today are so trained
to be consumers, right?
Constantly evaluating
what I'm getting out of
wherever I spend my time
and my energy
and my resources.
And so naturally,
I do that at church.
Church becomes about
getting my desires fulfilled,
my needs met,
and becomes about complaining
or leaving when I don't.
And we've already violated
the first priority of the kingdom.
That it has a Christ-centered focus.
That it's about Jesus,
not about me.
My questions need to change.
It's no longer,
do I like how this sounds
or how that is organized?
But rather,
does it glorify Jesus?
Does it exalt His name?
Does it advance His kingdom
in someone's life?
And if so, I rejoice
because it's about Him.
One more way I have this struggle
is in regards to community.
There's a reality about community
and the family of God
that Peter has actually
helped me learn a lot about
in the past few weeks
and understand better.
And the reality of that community
is that when someone comes
into a community,
when an outsider comes in,
that existing family
changes its shape.
Right?
It's no longer the same.
The Jews wanted no part
of these uncircumcised
lower class Gentiles
getting worked into their community.
Think of the analogy
with adopting a new child
into your family.
Some family principles
and practices
may stay the same, right?
But you may now have bunk beds
in your room
and you may not get your own room.
The family may not be able
to do some things
or go some places
in the same way
because it's grown
and the shape of the family
has changed.
You may have to share the remote.
You may have to do some things
that are important
to your new brother
and are part of his background
and his experiences.
And that can be hard.
And it can be beautiful.
I can hear the words
coming out of my own mouth.
Oh, small group is just
so much harder
now that they come.
You may have said,
my church just doesn't look
or smell
or sound the same anymore.
It's too big.
It's too small.
It's too young.
It's too old.
Think back to the mean girl
who met Jesus.
Imagine that she was living
out of town,
nowhere near you
and you read on Facebook
that she'd met Jesus.
You might genuinely rejoice, right?
You love that God works that way.
That He runs graciously
towards needy outsiders.
That He loves them
until she shows up in your church.
That's where the rub is, isn't it?
Until she shows up there
and the shape of your family changes.
It can be hard.
And it can be beautiful.
Don't you love older people?
That God has graciously run
toward crazy young people
in the next generation
who don't think like you do
or look like you do
and He's brought them
into your family
here at Southwood?
Don't you love that?
I know that you do.
Even though it's disruptive
to you sometimes,
I know you love it
because you tell me you love it.
You love seeing God do that.
Even if things change
and the shape of your family
looks different,
you rejoice.
You see the beauty in that.
because y'all have learned
what we struggle to learn.
Wouldn't it be beautiful, Southwood,
if God brought so many new members here
that we had a budget crisis
because the new members coming
were those who needed
financial assistance
rather than those giving
financial assistance?
Wouldn't it be beautiful
if we started singing different songs
because they kept being suggested
by all the new members
who'd come from different
ethnic backgrounds?
Wouldn't that be beautiful?
Southwood Kingdom Ministry
that focuses on Jesus
constantly follows Him
in sharing and showing the kingdom
to those who are outside
and different from us.
It must be absolutely
and exclusively focused on Jesus
and so it must be
intentionally inclusive
of the outsiders
for whom King Jesus has come.
who else needs to be in
here?
In your home?
In your life?
And then maybe even later
in these pews?
Think this morning of a person
or group of people.
How will you welcome them in?
How will they experience
the welcome of King Jesus
in relationship with you?
All of that.
All these outsiders
being welcomed in
would be beautiful
but perhaps hard
for our hearts.
That's the scary reality
of this passage.
We can't avoid it.
How quickly they seek
to get rid of Jesus.
Verse 28.
They heard all these things.
All in the synagogue
were filled with wrath.
They rose up
and drove him out of the town
and brought him
to the brow of the hill
on which their town was built
so they could throw him
down the cliff
but passing through their midst
he went away.
They had him there.
Jesus do all these amazing things.
We're so excited.
Here's the big moment
and they chase him out
to kill him
and he walks away.
We are tempted
to get rid of Jesus
to maintain
our preferred status quo.
That's scary, isn't it?
We're capable of that
just as they were.
And we may not
throw him off a cliff
and stone him
as a false prophet
but we might ignore
his commands
for my life.
We might rationalize away
his agenda
for his church
when it doesn't suit ours
or doesn't seem comfortable to us.
We may do whatever it takes
to stay comfortable
on the inside.
Even keeping Jesus
at arm's length.
Oh, I would never do that.
Even keeping Jesus
at arm's length
possibly because
we so want to be comfortable
on the inside.
God, may it never be here
that we would pursue
our agenda
and our glory
and practically
get rid of Jesus.
Might we more and more
share the heart
of Jesus?
You see,
the beauty of Jesus' kingdom
is its inclusive
exclusivism.
It's a phrase
I'm borrowing
from my friend
Dane Ortlund.
Let me explain briefly
as we close.
Our world,
the culture in which we live
is inclusive.
Living under an ethic
of tolerance
where everyone
and everything
is in.
Unless, of course,
you believe
that there's right
and wrong
or things that should
or shouldn't happen
and then
there might be
an outsider.
So the inclusion
is actually rather empty,
isn't it?
Religion,
on the other hand,
is exclusive.
Because only the initiated
or those who measure up
or meet all the requirements
and perform well enough
are in
and everyone else
is out.
Jesus is entirely different
from either of those.
It's an inclusive
exclusivism.
He as always unites
word and deed.
He doesn't merely
talk about salvation.
He actually achieves it.
He meets all the requirements
to be in
and then He's treated
as one who doesn't
and is left out.
When He goes to the cross
in our place
where we deserve
ultimate rejection,
He is left out
away from the Father
so that we can be welcomed in
with all our debts paid,
all our sins forgiven.
That's what He does for us, right?
That's inclusive exclusivism.
We are in
only through Jesus.
And Jesus graciously invites
all to come in
through Him.
You don't have to measure up.
He's done that.
You don't have to get it right.
He has done that.
All can come in
because of Him.
Lifelong outsiders,
those who long to be insiders,
all are welcomed
into His family
because of Him.
May we rejoice
in that gracious welcome.
May we extend it
to many others.
Pray with me to that end.
Father, that's
Your heart.
So often it's not
ours.
Thank You for being a God
who consistently
and in
book after book
and page after page
and story after story
chases graciously
after those
who are far away,
who don't deserve
His love.
Because if You weren't
like that,
none of us would know You.
Thank You.
Father, may it not
stop there.
May Your grace
that You have poured out
on us
overflow
to many.
May we never begrudge
Your generosity,
but may we rejoice
in getting to share
with others
what You have shared
with us.
Do it in our hearts
this morning.
Make it change
the way we approach
this afternoon
and every day
for the rest of our lives.
We ask that You would
do that work
for Your glory.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
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