As they are heading to the back, we are going to turn now to this morning's message. We're continuing in our series in Luke's Gospel. The series is called Kingdom Come, and we are in Luke chapter 4. Last week we looked at the temptation of Jesus, that famous passage where Jesus is led by the Spirit out into the wilderness for 40 days. He doesn't eat, and then Satan shows up and leads Him through a whole slew of temptation that Jesus resists fully. Well, now we're continuing on Luke's Gospel. This morning we're going to look at Luke 4:14-30.
So follow along with me now. Hear God's holy and authoritative Word. "And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and the 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 appointed 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 this not 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 to them, "Truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth I tell you, there are many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens were shut up 3 years and 6 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.' And 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 from the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away. The word of the Lord. May he write its truth upon our hearts.
Father, that is our desire, Lord, that we would be shaped by your word. Lord, we even ask now that In your Spirit, you would stir up faith that helps us to see, that your Spirit would stir up the illumination that would help us to know and recognize that these are your words, not some of them, but all of them, not just certain sections, but all of it, that it all carries your full authority. And so all of it calls us to bend our hearts and submit our knees. And Lord, that your word promises in doing that, in obeying, there is joy and there is pleasure and there is satisfaction in your Son Jesus. So Lord, we ask by the Spirit's power now that you would do that in the midst of your people for the glory of your Son Jesus. Amen.
Well, it's another famous passage in Luke's Gospel. It's really sort of presented as Jesus' first sermon. The first sermon we get information about anyway. And it led me to kind of wonder and ask the question, what would it be like if we found out in Kansas City, in this area, that Jesus was coming? That Jesus was coming and He's going to be doing a preaching tour of the area. He was coming to the Midwest and at a certain point in coming to the Midwest, we started hearing about these messages He was giving and the impact they were having on people and word was spreading and Twitter was abuzz. And then we found out He was coming to Kansas City. More than that, He was going to come to Providence. What would the expectation be like? How would we react in the buildup to finding out that Jesus was going to stand here in this pulpit and preach to us? How would we prepare differently?
Yeah, I realize for some of us, especially coming off of last night, maybe you paid the $100 and watched the big fight everyone was talking about. And because it was a big fight and there were so many people watching, it went later than everyone expected. And so maybe this morning it was just the challenge to get out of bed because it was a late, late night. Maybe it's like a typical Sunday morning and it's just, man, it's chaos. I'm trying to get the kids clothed and clean and fed. They're screaming. We're trying to just like have some semblance of organization as we try and get out to the van to get there. It's like a semi-miracle if we can get there somewhere in the 10 o'clock hour. Maybe that's kind of your reality on Sunday mornings. But what would it be like if we knew that next Sunday on Mother's Day, Jesus was going to be doing the baby dedication? Right? How many would be, "Hey, I want my kids rededicated!" Jesus was going to be doing the message.
I bring that up because here we are looking at a passage where Jesus preaches to his hometown church, essentially. And I think it's helpful for us to realize the reality of what we do each week. Jesus doesn't preach each week. Obviously, it's one of your elders who preaches week in and week out. But because we are a church that loves the Word, we only ever preach from God's Word. And here's what that means. It means that week in and week out, even though Jesus isn't physically standing in front of you preaching, Jesus is giving you a message each week. That's the reality of what we celebrate.
6 · Grounds the previous claim in the promise of Christ's ascension and the sending of the Spirit, arguing that the Spirit's presence makes Scripture function as Christ's living voice to the gathered church
That's what we celebrate at this table. That His body was broken, that His blood was shed, but that He was also raised from the grave. And so there's that famous passage in the Gospels where He says, "It's better for you that I go away." Why? Because I'm going to send the Spirit. And in the Spirit's arrival, when you gather as the people of God, the Spirit will be present and the Spirit will be active and the Spirit will minister. And this word that the Spirit has inspired will speak to you as the words of the risen Christ.
7 · Applies the doctrine of Scripture's authority and the Spirit's ministry to the congregation's Sunday morning posture, arguing that recognizing Scripture as Christ's voice should fundamentally change how they approach worship
That's really significant, isn't it? How does that change how we think about our gathering together on a Sunday morning? That the Spirit of Christ comes before us and that we're hearing not the words of Matthew or Seth or Dave, but we're hearing the words of Jesus. That's really significant for us. So I wanted to start there this morning.
8 · Signals the transition from the introductory theological claim about Scripture's authority to the first major movement of the sermon: examining the nature of Jesus' ministry as presented in Luke 4
But as we jump into the text itself, we see two things I want to kind of park on this morning. The first is we see the nature of Jesus' ministry in this initial sermon that Luke lays out for us. We see the nature of Jesus' ministry.
9 · Uses the cultural convention of a president's first 100 days — a period of intense scrutiny and symbolic importance — as an analogy for how Luke presents Jesus' inaugural sermon in Nazareth
Now, in politics, in American politics, when someone gets elected president, there's huge significance built into their first 100 days in office, right? If you're a political junkie or just someone who kind of keeps an eye on those things, there's a lot of freight put into what's the new president going to accomplish in those first 100 days of his presidency. It sets a tone. There's this immensely important and strategic period where he's going to show what kind of presidency he has, what are his agendas, what's at the forefront of what he's trying to accomplish. What are his hopes? How does he want to shape and move the nation? And the work he gets done in that opening 100 days is meant to set the tone for his presidency.
10 · Applies the presidential analogy to Luke's narrative strategy, arguing that Luke presents the Nazareth sermon as Jesus' inaugural address — the programmatic statement revealing the nature and priorities of His entire ministry
I bring that up because it's not dissimilar from what we see happening in Luke chapter 4. Luke is showing us here in Luke 4 at the very outset of Jesus' ministry right after that hugely symbolic standoff with Satan that happened in the wilderness in the previous passage. He's showing us now what the heart of Jesus' ministry is meant to be. This is sort of His introduction to, if you will, Jesus' first 100 days of ministry. This is what Jesus wants us to understand His ministry is about.
11 · Explains the narrative context of Luke 4:14-16, highlighting how Jesus' growing fame as an itinerant teacher sets up the significance of His return to Nazareth for what Luke frames as His first officially public sermon
His fame spreads initially because of the kind of teaching that he's doing in Galilee. The opening verses basically just talk about this whole region that's buzzing because of this man, this 30-something man who's walking the country as an itinerant rabbi, as an itinerant preacher. And that then leads to the significance of this scene. Luke presents to us Jesus' first officially public sermon. So he's doing teaching, and now Luke says this sermon in his hometown synagogue represents it.
12 · Reinforces the claim that Luke presents this sermon with the weight of an inaugural address, emphasizing Luke's narrative technique of slowing down to give detailed attention to this particular message
It's almost like he's giving us, you could almost say, Jesus' inaugural address. That's the significance Luke is trying to give to this message. He says he's teaching, and then he comes to his hometown synagogue, and then Luke stops, he slows down, and he presents to us A summary of what was taught. What do we see in this inaugural address, this inaugural sermon? Luke is putting that kind of symbolism and strategic importance into it.
13 · Reinforces the inaugural address analogy by describing the meticulous preparation of presidential speeches, using Kennedy's famous line to illustrate how carefully crafted words define a presidency's vision
You think of a president and that inaugural address. It's like they parse out every syllable. The speechwriters go through with a fine-tooth comb Revision after revision after revision after revision to make sure it's just perfect in describing who the president is going to be, what their vision is. "Ask not," right? Kennedy's famous words. That kind of intentionality.
14 · Applies the illustration back to the text, asserting that Luke assigns the same level of intentionality and significance to Jesus' Nazareth sermon, then begins narrating the scene where Jesus is invited to read from Isaiah
Well, that's what Luke is trying to show us with this message. It's that significant. And so He comes to His hometown synagogue. They're excited that they've heard. And then they bring Jesus up to the front. They're going to have Him read from the prophet, from the prophet Isaiah.
15 · Provides historical-cultural background on ancient scroll reading practices, emphasizing the physical process of unrolling and searching to build dramatic tension around Jesus' deliberate selection of Isaiah 61
And now one thing you have to keep in mind, it's not like our Bibles where you've got a ribbon and there's like a ribbon. And so they give Him the Bible and He just kind of flips it open and, oh, there it is. And He kind of pages through and finds His spot. No, they come up and there's a scroll. It's the scroll of Isaiah. You've got to twist this scroll to get to the right section. It's different from our Bibles. There's not chapters, right? There's not chapter divisions. There's not heading divisions. So He gets this scroll of Isaiah and Jesus has it now and He's twisting and He's working His way to find the spot. He's scanning through the text. It's probably the Septuagint. Scanning through, trying to find the section he wants. So there's this kind of this, this everyone leaning forward. What's he going to read? Where is he going to end up? This palpable sense of anticipation. What's he going to teach us?
16 · Highlights Jesus' intentional selection of Isaiah 61:1-2 from the entire scroll, stressing that despite the brevity of the passage, it carries immense prophetic weight
And Jesus, not accidentally, very intentionally, works his way through the entire scroll to Isaiah 61. And he reads actually a very, very brief passage, just, just 2 verses from this massive scroll, but 2 verses that are packed with prophetic significance.
17 · Expounds the first element of Jesus' reading from Isaiah 61: the Spirit's anointing is explicitly for the purpose of proclamation, establishing that preaching is central to Jesus' ministry from the outset
The first thing he stresses in Isaiah 61:1-2 is that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him. Upon Jesus. So that He, Jesus, might proclaim good news. It's underscored. Luke is showing us from the outset of Jesus' ministry that one of the things central to what He's doing, to the nature of His ministry, to the nature of His work, is that there is a centrality of preaching, of teaching, of proclamation.
18 · Argues that while miracles and healings will attract attention and draw crowds, Jesus' reading from Isaiah deliberately prioritizes proclamation as the heart of His ministry, with miracles serving a secondary, supportive role
In some ways, I think Jesus is anticipating that what's going to get the headlines is going to be the healings and the miracles. That's the word that's going to spread about Him. It's the things He can do, the powerful displays. But here, Jesus and Luke intentionally are showing us that those things are true. They play a part of the ministry. They might draw in the crowds, but at the heart of what Jesus is trying to do is He is proclaiming, verbally proclaiming the Kingdom.
19 · Distinguishes proclamation from miracles by emphasizing that preaching uniquely demands a response from the hearer, then directly applies this to the congregation, asking how they are responding to the kingdom message being preached this morning
And this preaching, it's actually different in some ways from the healings that they'll come to experience. Because this proclamation, this preaching, is going to call the hearers, it's going to call the crowds, it's going to call us this morning to respond. To respond to the message of that kingdom. That's the same call that we encounter as we see Jesus presented in Luke's Gospel. How will we respond to the kingdom? How will you respond to the message of the kingdom this morning? As you were listening to the text, were you listening with an ear to think, "What does this tell me about Jesus? How is this describing the kingdom to me?"
20 · Sharpens the question from 'How will you respond to the kingdom?' to 'What will you do with Jesus?' — arguing that Jesus' purpose is not to be admired but to force hearers to a point of decision
The other question that's involved in this is really, "What will you do with Jesus?" What will you do with him? Now it becomes immediately obvious in Nazareth that day, as we'll see in a moment, Jesus isn't just simply content with people coming to lay eyes on him, is he? He's not doing this to be a spectacle. He's not doing this because it's really cool to have lots of people around him. He's doing this to bring the people in His home synagogue, in that home church, the people in these crowds as He goes throughout the land. He's doing this to force them to come to a point of decision.
21 · Applies the demand for decision to the congregation's Sunday morning gathering, arguing that Jesus is not content with them merely attending and socializing — He demands they ask how they will live differently in light of His kingdom
How will they now live in light of who Jesus is? He's claiming who this text says He is. And then what He's going to call them to do in light of that. And that's the same tension we should feel today. Jesus isn't content that we've come together to sing songs or to chat with friends or to make plans for the afternoon— a get-together or a playtime after the kids have their naps. He's not content that we would do that this morning. He wants us to come and to gather and to encounter the words of the risen Christ and to ask ourselves, to ask each other, how will we live in light of it? Don't come to gaze upon the spectacle. How will you live your life now set on a path of kingdom discipleship?
22 · Transitions from the emphasis on proclamation itself to examining the content of what Jesus proclaims, signaling a shift to expounding the substance of the Isaiah 61 message
The kingdom isn't just about proclamation. It's also about the content of that proclamation. And so Jesus reads strategically, like we said, from Isaiah to inform them about the good news that's coming.
23 · Provides historical-grammatical context for Isaiah 61, explaining that Isaiah's original audience was Israel in Babylonian captivity, not the Exodus generation, and that this captivity occurred 500 years before Jesus
There's good news, he says, of hope for the poor and of deliverance, of liberty for those who are oppressed. Now, it's helpful to realize what's going on, thinking back to what's Isaiah's context when he writes that. When Isaiah first writes those words, why is he offering hope? Why is he proclaiming liberty? Well, he's not talking about the Exodus when God's people were led out of bondage in Egypt. He's talking about their captivity in Babylon, that for 70 years God's people lived under foreign rule, that they weren't in their land, they weren't in Israel. And that captivity happened 500 years before Jesus came on the scene.
24 · Draws the typological connection between Isaiah's promise of future deliverance from Babylon and Jesus' declaration that deliverance is happening today — the difference is temporal: Isaiah points forward, Jesus declares present fulfillment
And so now here Jesus comes and he picks up the scroll of Isaiah And He intentionally turns to this passage to indicate that just like in Isaiah's time when Israel was in captivity, so now in Jesus' time, the people are in captivity. But for Isaiah, he was looking forward to say that you're going to be in captivity and from that captivity you're going to experience deliverance. Jesus' message is different. You're in captivity now, and here's the good news: today is the day you begin to experience deliverance.
25 · Expands the definition of 'the poor' beyond economic poverty to include all who are on the losing end of power, security, and influence — and clarifies that Jesus' promise is not material enrichment but reversal of the structures causing their marginalization
He's bringing good news to people who are desperately in need of it. For the poor and the impoverished in that original setting, those gathered today, it means that his arrival shows that relief is on the horizon. And he's not just thinking of poor people who are low on cash. He's got people that are just generally on the losing end of the spectrum, the losing end of the distribution of resources. When power gets divvied out, they're on the losing end of who has power and who has influence. When you think of security, being able to just rest your head and think, I'm going to wake up in the morning well-rested and not be disturbed by someone breaking into my home. Those kind of people. The disenfranchised and the marginalized won't necessarily become rich, but rather in the kingdom, those structures and those circumstances that have brought about all this hardship, Jesus is telling them, the good news is I've come to help reverse those things. To help change those things.
26 · Clarifies that the 'captivity' Jesus speaks of is not literal imprisonment in a Roman jail but a metaphor for universal spiritual bondage — everyone in Nazareth is in prison to sin and Satan
And then he says, for those that are in captivity, there's gonna be release and there's gonna be liberty. Now, I think it's helpful here to realize it's not like Nazareth is like the local Leavenworth. There's not like a Roman penitentiary in Nazareth. And so he's preaching this and everyone's like, oh yeah, There's going to be a jailbreak. Jesus is coming and He's going to throw open the jail cells and all the criminals are going to run loose through the countryside. But it's that sort of language He's using. That's sort of the imagery. But the vision isn't that there's a prison in Nazareth. It's that everyone in Nazareth is in prison.
27 · Identifies Satan as the captor, connecting Jesus' recent wilderness temptation to His acute awareness of how real and oppressive demonic bondage is for the people He addresses
That they're in captivity. Jesus has in view that these people are shackled by Satan. The same Satan, the same devil. He's just come out of the wilderness. Think how fresh this is for Jesus. He's walked in the wilderness for 40 days and He comes smack dab into the showdown with the devil. The devil throwing everything he can at Him. Temptation after temptation, trying to get Him to give in, to fall, to falter, to fall into sin because the devil wants to put shackles on Jesus. Jesus is aware of how real those shackles are, how real that captivity is. He's aware acutely of how these people suffer.
28 · Expands the captivity metaphor to include bondage to one's own sin, then identifies the promise of release and liberty as fundamentally a promise of salvation — forgiveness and freedom from both sin and Satan
And it's also a promise of liberty to those who are not just being attacked by the devil, but they're imprisoned to their own sin. It's a promise of relief. The promise, the language he uses of release and liberty, it's really language that's just talking fundamentally about salvation. The chains of their sin, the torment of their capture to the devil, those things are coming to an end because Jesus has arrived. He's here. He's the Messiah. And in Him there's forgiveness and there is release and there's liberty from out beneath these things.
29 · Interprets the promise of sight to the blind both literally (Jesus will heal physical blindness) and metaphorically (physical healings illustrate spiritual sight and salvation)
And while Jesus will literally bring sight to blind people, it's also those blind people being able to see again is meant to be a living illustration of how He's going to open people's eyes and open their hearts so they can receive salvation.
30 · Situates Isaiah 61 within the larger Servant Songs tradition in Isaiah, then highlights the dramatic moment when Jesus declares that the prophecy is fulfilled today — in His own person
It's this really powerful passage from Isaiah. And it's pointing towards this and several other passages in the book of Isaiah about the reality that there is a servant who's coming. This servant is the Messiah. And He's going to be a deliverer. And the amazing thing is when Jesus finishes reading it, He sits down. And He tells them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
31 · Provides cultural background on synagogue teaching customs to explain why Jesus sits down after reading — it's the expected posture for teaching, so the shock is not in the posture but in the content of His claim
Now, the first time you read that, you're kind of like, that's kind of weird. Like why does He sit down? Is that sort of like this awkward moment where He's doing something unexpected? It's not. In that day and age, you stood to read the Scripture, and then the teacher would sit down and expound the Scripture. So He's actually doing something that they would have expected Him to do. He stands to read and now He's sitting to teach. It's not radical what He does, it's radical what He says.
32 · Expounds Jesus' claim that 'today this Scripture is fulfilled,' interpreting it as Jesus explicitly identifying Himself as the Servant Isaiah prophesied, collapsing the gap between 'someday' and 'today
He sits down and there's this sense, right, of everyone is listening. They are waiting. What's He going to say? Today this scripture is fulfilled. Filled in your hearing. In other words, I'm the servant Isaiah was talking about. Isaiah talked about someday. Jesus is talking about today. Better yet, someday has now become today. What Isaiah foretold centuries earlier. Generations upon generations upon generations before this. Now, Jesus says with His arrival is coming true. The era of God's salvation has arrived. In other words, when He's talking about the Spirit coming and settling on the Servant, it means the Spirit is upon Him. It's upon Jesus. The Spirit has anointed Him. It's anointed Jesus of Nazareth. The Spirit has sent Him, Jesus, Joseph's Son.
33 · Uses a hypothetical scenario — a child from Providence returning to claim Messiahship — to help the congregation feel the dramatic weight of Jesus' claim in His hometown context
It's an incredibly dramatic scene. What would we do if a child of providence grew into adulthood and then came back, stood in this pulpit, and preached those kind of bold things? I'm a prophet. I have infallible, inerrant word from the Lord. No, no, I'm the Messiah. Messiah? I remember teaching that kid in children's ministry. I wasn't always sure he was listening. I know he wasn't listening.
34 · Reconstructs the emotional and social dynamics of Jesus' return to Nazareth, emphasizing the escalating nature of His claim from popular teacher to Messiah, which would have been mind-blowing to His hometown audience
They didn't have that experience with Jesus in children's ministry, but there's that sort of idea going around. It's a dramatic scene here. This 30-something-year-old guy is back. He probably hasn't been gone for that long. And there's this growing reputation that's been going around. Did you hear about Joseph's son? He's going around Galilee and he's getting popular. He's saying stuff and people are coming and they're listening. And so now he goes back to his home church and they're going to hear what all the fuss is about. And then he blows their minds. I'm not just the new top rabbi. I'm not the new most popular itinerant preacher. I'm the Messiah. I'm the one God has sent to deliver you and to redeem you, to bring you out of bondage and to save you. I'm the Messiah that you've been waiting all these centuries to receive.
35 · Identifies the theological significance of this scene for Luke's Gospel as a whole: all Old Testament promises are fulfilled in Christ, and the kingdom has arrived because Jesus has arrived
Luke is establishing one of the major themes of his Gospel. The promises of God, the promises of all the Old Testament Scriptures are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. This is Luke's way of saying the Kingdom of God has come in Christ. The Kingdom of God is here because Jesus is here.
36 · Synthesizes the first major movement of the sermon, asserting that the nature of Jesus' ministry is proclamation aimed at helping people recognize that all prior promises are fulfilled in Him
That's the nature of Jesus' ministry. It's a ministry of proclamation, of proclaiming that good news to the people and helping them to grasp, to come to grips with all the promises that have come before are being fulfilled in him.
37 · Signals the shift from the first major movement (the nature of Jesus' ministry) to the second major movement (the rejection of Jesus' ministry)
And that brings us to really the second part of the scene. Jesus describes the nature of his ministry and then Jesus experiences the rejection of his ministry, right?
38 · Corrects a common misreading of the passage by pointing out that the crowd's initial response is not rejection but excitement and approval — they marvel at Jesus' words before the turn happens
The thing to realize, I think, is that the crowd in the synagogue doesn't reject Jesus immediately. Sometimes we can have that impression. He comes, He preaches the message, and immediately they're trying to throw Him off the cliff. But that's not what Luke shows us. Initially, they're excited. Verse 22 says, "And they 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?"
39 · Reinterprets the 'Is not this Joseph's son?' question as an expression of hometown pride rather than skepticism — the crowd is celebrating that one of their own has become a prominent rabbi
Now I grew up thinking when they said, "Isn't this Joseph's son?" like it was a derogatory thing. I don't think that's what Luke is saying. A lot of times people assume that that reference to Joseph's boy is like a dig on Him. They aren't saying, "Isn't this Joseph the carpenter's boy?" It's more like the town is giddy with excitement. Isn't that Joseph's boy? Isn't that one of our own? He keeps talking about the fact that it's the hometown. He's the hometown boy and He's becoming the new big rabbi. Like the hometown boy has made it big. They're ready to throw Him the proverbial ticker tape parade. They're going to give Him the key to the city. Amen, Jesus, You did us proud!
40 · Exposes the crowd's motivation for their initial enthusiasm: they expect that because Jesus is from Nazareth, His messianic kingdom will bring special benefits and privileges to their hometown
Because the Messiah's arrived? Well, sort of. I think Luke's point is the expectation is because Jesus is a Nazarene, and there's this expectation that comes with it. Well, if Jesus is a Nazarene, and so then he says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and I've come to proclaim good news," right, "to the poor and to the captives." And their first response isn't, "String him up!" The first response is, This is great! We love everything you're saying! In other words, keep preaching it! Why are they saying that? Because it's Joseph's boy. And if Joseph's boy is the Messiah, and he's from Nazareth, and he's going to establish his kingdom, doesn't that mean we're going to get in on this in some pretty significant ways?
41 · Uses the analogy of pork barrel politics to describe the crowd's expectation of material kickbacks and local infrastructure projects once Jesus establishes His messianic kingdom
I think that's what's going on in the text. The people are getting excited. It's sort of like an ancient example of poor Pork barrel politics. They're expecting some sweet kickbacks. "We're going to get that new bridge in town, baby!" "When Jesus comes into power, they're going to come back and build that highway to nowhere!" That's the kind of things that are going through their mind.
42 · Diagnoses the crowd's excitement as greedy expectation rather than genuine faith — they see Jesus as a hometown asset to leverage for their own benefit, not as the fulfillment of God's redemptive promises
It's not so much the excitement that He's there and that He's the fulfillment of the Messiah. It's like this greedy expectation that the Messiah is our guy. We get to leverage this. That's why they keep talking about him being in his hometown. That's why they talk about Capernaum. Hey, can we see a little Capernaum action here? They want in on the action.
43 · Acknowledges a secondary motivation in the crowd — some skepticism that needs proof — but argues the dominant motivation is impatient expectation for Jesus to deliver the miracles they've heard about
I think there probably are some who are doubting he can do it. I think there is sort of a sense of, we heard you did some crazy stuff. Why don't you show us you can actually do those things? I think some of that's going on, but I think it's more, we heard what you can do. We heard what you can do and you're back home now. I mean, let's go. Start rolling it out.
44 · Uses the contemporary example of NFL draft entourages and celebrity hangers-on to illustrate how people attach themselves to someone successful in hopes of getting a share of the benefits
It's sort of interesting to watch the NFL Draft this last weekend and you see the prospective players who are getting drafted, and they're not just in the green room, as they call it, while they wait to get drafted just by themselves, are they? They're there with their entourage. These people who are there with their son or their nephew— sometimes they show the person's not at the green room, they're at their house having the draft party, and there's this room filled with people. A lot of those people are there to celebrate the fact that the guy is going to get drafted. And a lot of them are there thinking, "The guy is going to get drafted. The boy is going to get paid. I want to be there when he gets paid." Right? There's a reason why Mayweather and Pacquiao have so many people. They're getting paid so much money.
45 · Applies the illustration back to Nazareth, arguing that the crowd treats Jesus as a vending machine or genie — a means to personal advancement and special treatment rather than the Messiah who calls for submission
That's a snapshot of what's happening here. You can bet suddenly everybody in that synagogue has a connection to Jesus. Oh yeah, he always used to make our tables and we always gave him good tips. I'm sure he'll reciprocate a little bit now. Right? They're envisioning special treatment. Jesus is essentially a vending machine to them. It's like this little put-him-in-your-pocket Jesus. Oh, now I can take him out and rub him like a genie. And now he gives me wishes. He's from Nazareth. He's our Messiah. He's here to help us get ahead.
46 · Identifies the turning point in the narrative when Jesus declares 'no prophet is acceptable in his hometown,' which destroys the crowd's enthusiasm by signaling that He will not play the role they've assigned Him
And that's when Jesus kills the good vibes. That's when they come to a screeching halt. He tells them, "Truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown." We were really excited about everything you were saying until that. That's a party-killing phrase if you're in the hometown.
47 · Provides historical context for Jesus' statement, explaining that Galilee's identity as part of the Northern Kingdom — which had a history of rejecting prophets — makes Jesus' comment an indictment of their spiritual lineage
You got to remember, Galilee is a part of the Northern Kingdom. Northern Kingdom after Solomon, right? The nation of Israel is divided north and south, Israel and Judah. And Israel, the Northern Kingdom, slides much faster than Judah into sin. And so what's their history with the prophets, the men that are coming to call them back to repentance? Well, the prophets in the north are despised even more than the prophets in the south. So that's not a nice quote to come into a town in the north and say, "Man, you guys always despise the prophets when they come home." That's part of what's going on. He's reminding them of their unsavory past. "I know how you treated the predecessors."
48 · Signals the escalation of the conflict by indicating that Jesus is about to reveal who will actually receive the kingdom's benefits — which will provoke the crowd's rage
And then it really turns ugly because Jesus tells them who will receive the kingdom.
49 · Introduces the two Old Testament stories Jesus cites (Elijah and Elisha) as the catalysts that turn the crowd from excitement to violent rejection
He tells them two stories from the Old Testament. Two stories that all of a sudden take it from the nature of His kingdom to people immediately rejecting His kingdom.
50 · Expounds the first example (Elijah and the widow of Zarephath), emphasizing that Elijah bypassed many Israelite widows to bring God's blessing to a Gentile outsider during the famine
The one story is the story of Elijah. There's 3.5 years of famine. And there's this widow. This widow from the land of Sidon. It's Phoenicia. The thing you have to remember is not so much that it's Phoenicia, but that it's not Israel. Why does Elijah go to her? Are there a shortage of widows in Israel? No, actually quite the opposite. Jesus says there are plenty of widows in Israel, but Elijah intentionally goes to an outsider, brings the blessing of God to one who is outside the people of God.
51 · Expounds the second example (Elisha and Naaman), emphasizing that Elisha healed a Syrian king of leprosy while bypassing many Israelite lepers, reinforcing the same pattern of blessing going to Gentile outsiders
And then He tells the story of Elisha. When he heals a man of leprosy, it's the same song, second verse. Are there a shortage of lepers in Israel? No, not at all. There's plenty of people with their skin falling off in Israel. But God sends the prophet to Naaman. Not just a foreigner, but a Syrian king, a foreign king. Again, another story about the prophet taking the blessings, the goodies, to somebody outside the people.
52 · Identifies the revelation that Gentiles will receive the kingdom as the trigger for the crowd's violent rage, emphasizing the shocking speed with which they turn from adulation to attempted murder
And it's hearing that that the good news of the kingdom is going to go out. It's going to be received by non-Jews. It's that that throws His home church into a wrath. In an instant, He goes from the favored Son, key to the city, to public enemy number one. It's pretty astonishing how fickle their hearts are, isn't it? How quickly they turn. They're like fawning over him to now ready to kill him, ready to throw him off a cliff.
53 · Synthesizes the crowd's motivation for rejection: they discover there is no nepotism or insider privilege in Jesus' kingdom, which destroys their hope for special treatment
The reality of what they see is that there's no nepotism in Jesus' kingdom. There's no benefits to insiders, and that's not the good news they're looking for.
54 · Transitions from exposition to application by identifying two wrong heart responses revealed in Nazareth's rejection, beginning with the first: a consumer mentality
And I think that entire episode highlights for us two ways about how not to respond to Jesus. They reject his ministry because there's two things going on in their heart that we need to be aware of and we need to avoid. Two ways how not to respond like I think Nazareth is responding. The first is you don't want to respond to Jesus with a consumer mentality. That's part of what's going on in the first wrong response.
55 · Diagnoses the first wrong response as consumerism — a selfish, hoarding instinct that treats the good news as scarce and demands control over how salvation is distributed, exposing a failure to grasp God's generosity
This is something driven by selfishness and jealousy and provincialism. No, Jesus is ours! He's mine! The good news is for us, like just us! It's no coincidence Jesus mentions Elijah and Elisha. He knows He's going to be rejected in a similar way when people start to take issue with God's purposes And people start to make demands about how they expect salvation to roll out. No, no, no, no, Jesus. That ain't according to my plan. That's not how this whole story goes. And you see this consumerism as they start to get all Ebenezer Scrooge-ish with the good news. It's like there's just this miserly instinct to like, it's my good news. You can't have any good news. There's not enough good news to go around. This is only for me and Nazareth. You're a fifth cousin. You moved away 5 years ago. No good news for you. Yeah, that was a little bit of a Simpsons or a Seinfeld there. No soup for you. No good news for you.
56 · Warns that consumerism produces a murderous instinct toward prophets who don't cater to preferences, leading people to reject true prophets in favor of ear-tickling false teachers
But that's not the way Jesus wants us to act. That consumerism is just like, if Jesus doesn't tell us what we want to hear, we'll murder him and wait for a prophet who will tickle our ears.
57 · Applies the consumer mentality diagnosis to contemporary American Christianity, warning that consumer culture's 'customer is always right' ethic leads people to demand that the gospel conform to their preferences rather than submitting to its claims
And that's so crucial to grasp today because we live in a consumeristic culture. We live in a culture that treats everything like a commodity. Religion included. Christianity included. We live in a world where the consumer, the customer, is always right. So, because I'm the customer, you better get the message right. You better tell me what I want to hear or I'm not going to keep coming back. I was kind of into Jesus and then the more I kind of encountered it, I didn't really like it, so now I'm moving on to different things. The expectation is when the customer's tastes and preferences change, then the message better change as well.
58 · Identifies a second dimension of the consumer mentality — hoarding the gospel out of fear that others receiving it will deplete the supply — which reveals a failure to grasp the infinite nature of God's grace
The other side of that consumerism is just that inner hoarder. You can't have this. It's this idea that Nazareth goes into a rage because they assume other people— scandalous— other people are getting in on the good news? And there's this idea that if that happens, if others get in on the good news of the kingdom, there's going to be less to go around for us. It's just like total failure to understand how generous God is. They don't get how generous He's been to Israel, and they don't understand that the nature of God's grace isn't that there's just a little bit of it. The nature of God's grace, the nature of the grace we encounter in the Kingdom, is that there's an infinite supply of blessing available in Jesus.
59 · Warns that the consumer mentality kills mission and neighbor love by creating a stingy, marketer's mindset rather than an ambassador's confidence in the gospel's abundance
And so that consumer mentality, it's just the death to mission, isn't it? It's the death to loving your neighbor. How do you proclaim Jesus with boldness and confidence if you're worried somebody else is going to get it? Everybody's gonna get in on it. It's gonna mean less for you. We're not meant to be marketers. That's the other piece of that. When we're sent out, we're not called to be marketers. We're called to be ambassadors. And it creates this stinginess in our missional mindset.
60 · Applies the warning specifically to Providence, cautioning the congregation against thinking only about how the gospel benefits their own church and families rather than how it is meant to be shared broadly
And I think this is a helpful caution, we start to think only about how the Gospel benefits this church. We start to think only about how the Gospel benefits my family. The only people I am concerned about understanding the Good News are the ones that come to Providence on Sunday. Or the ones that sit at my table on Tuesday night. You completely lose sight of how the good news is meant to be shared. It's meant to go out because you're a consumer and you're a hoarder. You're upset that Jesus is letting others in on this.
61 · Transitions to the second wrong response revealed in Nazareth's rejection: a holier-than-thou mentality that assumes no need for the good news
I think the other mentality to be aware of. That's a wrong response. It's at the heart of why Nazareth responds the way they do. This is the final piece this morning. There's this mentality. It's not necessarily a consumer mentality, but a holier-than-thou mentality. This is the second wrong response.
62 · Diagnoses the second wrong response: a holier-than-thou mentality that treats miracles as the substance of the kingdom rather than as verification of Jesus' message, revealing a failure to grasp that the good news is about their spiritual need, not just spectacular displays
This holier-than-thou mentality allows you to assume that you don't need the good news. Nazareth thinks the good news is that miracles come with Jesus. That teaching was amazing! Can you also show us some stuff? Like, that was cool, but can you now do some stuff? Nazareth has this idea that there's goodies to be had, but the miracles just attest to the truthfulness of what Jesus is preaching. In other words, the miracles and healings point forward to the consummation of His kingdom. There's going to be a time when there's no more sickness, when there's no more blind people. But right now, in the time when Jesus is ministering, those miracles, they're not the substance of the kingdom. They just verify the truthfulness of the kingdom. What He's preaching is true, and the reason you know it's true is because miracles are happening and incredible things are happening. But that's not so that you obsess on the miracles. It's so that you're Wow! I better listen to what He says! That's why the miracles are happening at this point in Jesus' initial appearance on the scene.
63 · Identifies the root problem: Nazareth doesn't recognize their spiritual sickness, which explains why they reject the physician who came to heal them
Jesus' hometown doesn't realize they're sick. They don't realize they need a physician. I think that's part of the reason they turn so quickly to reject Him.
64 · Introduces a contemporary illustration from a recent pastors' meeting to highlight the danger of American affluence creating the illusion of self-sufficiency, which parallels Nazareth's failure to recognize their need
And I think we had a pastors' fraternal meeting this last week. So it's a meeting of local pastors. And one of the pastors there said something that was very helpful as we even think about this text. It can be a very dangerous temptation in America. It can be a very dangerous temptation in just Johnson County. Even the poor areas of Kansas City are wealthy compared to the world, right? But just wherever you're at in America, in Johnson County, that dangerous temptation to think, "I've got a nice house, I've got a nice car, I've got a nice job, I've got a nice family. Look at how nice everything is when I upload it on Facebook. We've got everything just perfectly together."
65 · Uses social media curation as an extended analogy for how contemporary culture (like Nazareth) projects an image of having it all together, hiding the brokenness that would reveal the need for a Savior
People usually don't Instagram the photos that show just abject chaos. They don't Instagram the pictures of child number 1 with their hands around the neck of child number 2. "Look at how great my family is! I'm such a good parent!" Nobody's doing those. Nobody's liking them in bulk, right? No, it's, "Aww, look how cute! Look what little Johnny said today!" And you have this idea that it's like, it's all just clean. And it's all just tidy. And we live in a culture that's obsessed with making ourselves look better than we are. It's one of the things social media allows us to do, is to project this image of who we are. Wow, Sarah from college, she just updated a new Facebook profile picture and she looks great. I wish I looked that great. Well, Sarah has gone through all of her pictures and found the one where she looks the most great and she's put that one up. Who knows how many she's done. I can't use that one, I got a double chin in that one. We do that. We project an image.
66 · Warns that when the church adopts the culture's obsession with image management, it keeps people from the kingdom by making genuine confession and accountability impossible, which are necessary for recognizing the need for grace
That happens. Our culture is obsessed with projecting that image. And when the church— hear this— when the church lives that lie, that keeps people from the kingdom. When you live the lie that says, "I have to project perfection. I have to project that everything is orderly and nice and good and perfect." just picket fence wholesomeness, that keeps people, it keeps people in your families, in your churches, it keeps your children from the kingdom. If Providence is a place more concerned about keeping up appearances than about authentically living life together in accountability, a place where confession can happen, because you can't do confession if you're living all of your life as a Facebook post. Doesn't work.
67 · Applies the Nazareth pattern to the congregation, warning that those who project health cut themselves off from the good news because Jesus came for those who admit their sickness, not those who deny it
If you're doing that, what you see in Nazareth is you're cutting yourself off from the good news. Jesus didn't come for the healthy, but for the sick. Who needs the physician? The implication with that isn't that some people don't need Jesus. No, the implication is we all do, but some people don't admit they're sick.
68 · Begins a litany of concrete examples of the brokenness hidden behind the facade of respectability, starting with sins of the heart like greed, ambition, and pleasure-seeking
Behind the facade, behind those illusions we put up, we put ourselves in dangerous places. Behind the facade of faithful church attendance, behind the facade of being a churchgoing Christian, use whatever phrase you want to use, right? Whatever loaded phrase that means you've got it all together. Behind that facade, there's a heart that's seduced by greed or ambition or pleasure.
69 · Continues the litany with the specific example of a teen struggling with pornography addiction — a sin hidden behind the curated public image
Behind the facade is a teen slowly getting sucked into pornography. Not putting those pictures on Facebook, is he?
70 · Continues the litany with the example of a dating couple rationalizing sexual sin, warning that cultural normalization doesn't change biblical reality — fornicators don't inherit the kingdom
Behind the facade is a couple that's dating and they're incrementally getting closer and closer to just, "How much further can we push the line?" Until they're just fornicating. But in the culture, that's not really that big a deal because everyone does that. So that's not really like a bad sin anymore. You know, the Bible says those people don't inherit the kingdom.
71 · Continues the litany with the example of a family projecting affluence while actually enslaved to debt
Behind the facade— nice house, nice car, nice everything— is a family paralyzed by debt.
72 · Continues the litany with the example of a husband hiding violent anger behind a respectable exterior
Behind the facade is a husband who's full of rage and explosive anger.
73 · Synthesizes the litany by asserting that hiding behind facades keeps the gospel at arm's length because it convinces us we don't fit the categories Jesus came to address — we're not poor, captive, or blind
If we hide behind the facades, we keep the gospel at arm's length. Convincing ourselves that other people are poor. We're not poor. We're not captive. We're not blind.
74 · Transitions from the diagnostic (our tendency to hide behind facades) to the gospel remedy by introducing Isaiah 53, the suffering servant passage that reveals how Jesus deals with our hidden brokenness
But the good news is Jesus has come to deliver all of us, and he offers a Immense hope. One of the other servant passages in the book of Isaiah, the more famous servant passage, the suffering servant passage in Isaiah 53.
75 · Reads the opening of Isaiah 53:3, connecting the description of the despised and rejected servant to what Jesus just experienced in Nazareth, establishing continuity between the two servant passages
He was despised and rejected by men. Well, that sounds like Nazareth, doesn't it? He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.