Let's turn back to Luke 4. This week is Vacation Bible School,
and I pray for the Lord's blessing on that. I'm looking forward
to my class, the high school class, I know the other teachers
are, and I pray that the Lord will use this to reveal Himself. Marvin Stonerker is going to
be preaching for us tonight. He's preaching in Danville this
morning, and he's gonna come by and spend the night with me
tonight. Looking forward to that, and
he'll be here tonight. And also this week, there will
be no midweek services, as far as Wednesday night, while we're
having vacation Bible school. I have entitled the message for
this morning the first sermon of Christ. Chronologically, this
took place before the Sermon on the Mount, and this is the
first recorded sermon we have of the Lord Jesus Christ here
in Luke chapter four. Now, somebody may be thinking,
what do you mean by sermon? What is a sermon? A sermon is
a message. from God's inspired word, giving
the meaning of that passage through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, there's a lot of things
that go under the name of sermon. They're not sermons. You know
that as well as I do. But a sermon is a message from
the scriptures with a man giving the meaning of that passage under
the power of God, the Holy Spirit. Now in this passage of scripture,
the Lord read a scripture from Isaiah chapter 61. And then he gave the meaning
of the scripture. He said, This day, this scripture
is fulfilled in your ears." That's his comment with regard to the
meaning of this passage of scripture. And the response, verse 28, and
all they in the synagogue when they heard these things were
filled with wrath, anger, fury. They were so mad at this message
they heard that they took the Lord Jesus and took him up to
the brow of the hill where the city was built and they were
going to throw him down head first down a cliff and kill him. That's how angry they were with
this message. That was their response. Now, The Lord enters the temple
after he had been in other places. He grew up in Nazareth. He was
a hometown boy. And the people heard of his fame,
the things that he was doing, the miracles he was performing. So he comes back to his hometown,
and they're excited. They're excited. Hometown boy
made good. This is a crude illustration. Y'all know I'm a sports fan.
Well, there's a young man that grew up here in Lexington, Kentucky,
Walker Bueller, and he's the star picture of the Los Angeles
Dodgers. And I'm always very interested
in what he does, because he's from Lexington. Well, that is
a crude illustration, but that gives some idea. Maybe it doesn't,
I don't know, I thought of it. Maybe it's a dumb illustration,
but at any rate, Uh, the Lord comes back to his hometown and
everybody has heard of all the glorious things he had been doing
in Capernaum and in other places. And they were excited to hear
what he had to say. Now he, they listen to the Lord,
read this scripture. and they knew exactly what he
meant. That's why you could hear a pin
drop. That's why every eye was fastened on him as he read this
passage of scripture. One time, Brother Mahan, during
the early years in Ashland, was preaching, and he simply read
a passage of scripture from Romans 9. No comment. He just read it. For the children being not yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God according to election might stand. Not of works, but
of him that calleth. It was said unto her, the elder
shall serve the younger. As it's written, Jacob have I
loved, but Esau have I hated. And as he stopped reading that
passage scripture, somebody said vocally, it doesn't mean that. Well, that's pretty much the
same response. When our Lord read this passage scripture,
look in verse 18, like I said, this is a passage from Isaiah
61. And people knew that this is
a prophecy with regard to the Messiah. And I would love to have heard
the way the Lord read the scripture. But he said, the spirit of the
Lord is upon me. And I guarantee you, everybody
in there knew exactly what he was saying. This is Jesus of
Nazareth. We know his mom, we know his
dad, we know his brothers and sisters. He grew up here. He's
saying he's the one. That's exactly what he is saying. The spirit of the Lord is upon
me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book. Picture
that in your mind. He closed the book and he gave
it again to the minister and sat down. And the eyes of all
that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. You see, they
knew exactly what he meant. And he began to say unto them,
this day, right now, present tense, this scripture is fulfilled
in your I imagine you could have heard
a pin drop as he sat there. Every eye fastened on him. Now the first thing that I would
like us to consider is who it was he said he was sent for. It's so important. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me, for he has sent me to who? Well, there's a six-fold description
of the people he was sent for. See how you fit in into this.
He sent me to preach the gospel to the poor. Who are the poor? They don't have anything. They
do not have anything that they can bring to the table that would
make God accept or receive them. They are those without. Where do you fit in there? And then the next thing he mentions
is he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. Shattered. The heart is no good. The heart is beyond repair. Evil. Unevil heart. A wicked heart. Broken. Beyond repair. Where do you fit in there? The third description? He has sent me to preach deliverance
to the captives, people who are in prison and cannot get out,
people who are enslaved, they're captives to their evil nature. If you tell them a free will,
they think that's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. I'm enslaved
to this evil, wicked nature. I cannot not sin. That's the place I'm at. Well,
he is sent to preach deliverance to people who are captives. And then he came for the recovering
of sight to them that are blind. People who cannot see any reason
in themselves as to why God would have favor toward them. They
can't see. They're not victims where it's
not their fault and he ought to do something for me. No, they're
not victims at all. They're people who their sin
is all their fault and they can't see one reason as to why God
in themselves, one reason as to why God would give them favor. And then he says, to set at liberty,
set free them that are bruised or crushed. Crushed is the word. To preach, verse 19, the acceptable
year of the Lord. And that's a reference to the
year of Jubilee. Now, the year of Jubilee, you
can read about it in Leviticus chapter 25. It's one of the most
amazing things in the Bible. teaches us the gospel. Every
50 years, the silver trumpet of Jubilee would sound, and whatever
debt you had, if you were a slave that couldn't pay your way out
of your condition, and you're enslaved, all your debts are
canceled. Now, do you owe any money right
now? I dare say some of you do, maybe just a few of you, but
do you owe any money? Can you imagine what it would
mean if all of a sudden all your, you're paid? You don't owe a
dime. And if you were a slave, you
couldn't get out from under that bondage, but on the year of Jubilee,
if you were a slave, you were set free. You were no longer
a slave. Anything you lost? through your
inability to pay, was restored back to you. And you were given
a year's vacation. The land was given a year's rest. Now, who'd that mean something
to? I tell you what, if somebody
owed you money, if that was your slave working
for you, that wouldn't be good news when you heard that silver
trumpet, would it? You'd think you're the loser by it. But who
was it that was excited about this? People who were slaves,
people who were in debt, and people who could not pay their
debts. They'd lost everything. Now the
Lord says, I am the year of Jubilee. You know, I think this is so
interesting. There's not one time in all of the Word of God
where it's ever said that the children of Israel ever actually
practiced the year of Jubilee. They were commanded to, but they
didn't. I guarantee you the quote powers
that be made sure it didn't happen. I mean, a lot of people lose
a lot of money in this. But the Lord said, I am the fulfillment. This day, this day, this scripture,
fulfilled in your ears. And all, verse 22, and all bear him witness and wondered
at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. Now, what the
Lord is saying is, I am the one. anointed by the Spirit of God
to preach the gospel to the poor. I am the one. I am the one who heals the brokenhearted. I am the one who delivers the
captives. I am the one who gives sight
to the blind. I am the one. That's what he's
saying. I am the one. I am the only one. I'm the Messiah. I am the deliverer. I am the one who saves. Now that is exactly what the
Lord was saying to these people. And they heard. They heard. And their response was, is not
this Joseph's son? We've seen him grow up. We know
his relatives. We saw him working in the carpenter's
shop. Is not this Joseph's son? All they could see was the son
of Joseph. They could not see the son of
God. That's the difference. They could
see the son of Joseph. Hey, he'd been around for 30
years. Our kids went to school with
him, but they could not see him as God, the son. Now let me say this, please listen
to this real carefully. Salvation, God's salvation is
seeing who he is. Do you hear that? God's salvation
is seeing who He is. Everything else comes out of
that. Everything. You see who He is, you'll see
who you are. You see who He is, you'll see
your need of Him. You see who He is, you'll see
that He is salvation. Salvation is seeing who He is. And when you see who He is, you
see Him not only as Joseph's son, but the Son of God. Now, what does that mean? Somebody
says, well, I believe, you probably would ask a lot of people in
Lexington or anywhere else, do you believe Jesus Christ is the
Son of God? They'd say, probably, yeah. Not knowing what it meant.
They've been raised to hear that, or maybe they think he's the
son of God the same way Adam was. Adam was called the son
of God. Here's what the son of God means. In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. Jesus Christ is all that the
living God is. He possesses every attribute
of deity. He is all powerful. He is absolutely
sovereign. He is absolutely just. He is omniscient. Every attribute
of God. He's independent. I love his
independence. That means he doesn't need me
and you. You and me need him, but he doesn't need us. He is
God the son. They saw him as Joseph's son,
but they did not see him as the son of God. And so here is what
he said to them in verse 23, after they said, well, this is
Joseph's son. And he said unto them, you will
surely say unto me this proverb. And this was a well-known proverb.
Physician, heal thyself. Now, you claim to be a physician,
heal yourself. And I'm sure that this was said
many times over the years to maybe a doctor get sick. And
they said, well, heal yourself if you're a real physician. It
was really a proverb of derision. Physician, heal yourself. A proverb
of derision. It came from a low view of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now he said, you'll surely say
unto me, this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have
heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. Now you've
come home, we've heard about what you did in Capernaum. Do
it here and prove yourself. Do it here and prove yourself.
This comes from a low view of his person. And there's somewhat
of a sense of entitlement here. What you did there, do here.
This is your hometown. You need to do this for us. What
we've heard there, do here as well. Just a high view of themselves
and a low view of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, verse 24, verily,
I say unto you, Now, this is the Lord speaking. This is divine authority. I love it in the Sermon on the
Mount when he says, you've heard it said by them of old, I say
it to you. That's his authority as the God
man. Verily, I say it to you. And
then he makes this statement. And he actually made this three,
this statement three times during his earthly ministry. Verily
I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. And they rejected him, didn't
they? I mean, he's a hometown boy. It's this familiarity, a
wrong familiarity. You've heard the statement, familiarity
breeds contempt. Well, here it did with him. They
said, and he used this statement, no prophet is accepted in his
own country. But, verse 25, I tell you of a truth. He gives his response
to their unbelief by a declaration of the sovereignty of God in
salvation. Now, he could have said, God
is sovereign in salvation. They probably would have all
said amen. But he illustrates what he is saying with two illustrations
taken from the Old Testament. in this declaration of the absolute
sovereignty of God and salvation. Now what he's saying is you don't
believe me. You don't believe me. You don't
believe I'm he. You don't believe that I am the
one anointed by God. You don't believe I'm the one
who gives deliverance to the captives. You don't believe that
I am the year of jubilee. You don't believe me. I couldn't
help but think of John chapter six where he said to those people,
you've seen me. And believe not. All the Father giveth me shall
come to me. You don't come to me, you're
not one that was given to me of my father, is what he's saying
to them. No room for different interpretations, there it is.
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Him that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out. Well, the same thing is
going on here. Same thing, look at this illustration, verse 25.
I tell you the truth. Many widows were in Israel in the day of Elijah when the
heaven was shut up three years and six months. Now I want you
to think about that. Three years and six months without a drop
of rain. You think of the suffering that
created in the land of Israel. What if in central Kentucky,
what if in the United States, God withheld the reign for three
years and six months? Great famine was throughout. all the land, but unto none of them, not one widow
in Israel, but unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta,
the city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. Now the Lord
passed by. He did not send his prophet to
one widow. in Israel, but he sent his prophet
to a Gentile woman and supplied her with food and water. And then in case you didn't hear,
the Lord gives another example. Verse 27, many lepers were in Israel in
the time of Elisha the prophet. How many? Who knows? Thousands?
Hundreds of thousands? I don't know. Many, though, is
what the Lord said. Many lepers were in Israel in
the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed.
Not a one, save in Naaman the Syrian. He wasn't an Israelite. He was general in the Syrian
army that had been used by God to defeat the Israelites. And
many people have been captured through his rule. He's the only
one that God in his sovereignty sent his prophet to, to save. Now, there isn't any other way
to take this. The Lord is making a declaration
of his utter sovereignty in salvation. You don't believe me. God, as an act of his sovereignty,
has passed you by. If you continue in this, it'll
only be because God passed you by, as an act of his justice,
as an act of his irreprehensible justice. He passed you by. You don't believe me? You have
a low opinion of me? You don't see me as the Messiah.
God has passed you by. Now somebody says, that's hard. The only thing that would make
you think that's hard is because you have a high view of yourself.
If you believe you're a sinner, if God passed you by, would he
be right? Come on now, would he be right? if he passed you by. Now, these people evidently did
not think that would be right. They got very angry. Look in verse 28. And all they,
everybody that heard this, all they in the synagogue, when they
heard these things were filled with Now let me say this before I
go on with these people's response. The gospel is free. If you are poor, if you are brokenhearted,
if you're a captive to sin, If you're blind and can't see why
God would save you, if you are shattered, if you're a slave,
listen to me, Jesus Christ came to save you. If you're a sinner, if you're a sinner, I guarantee
you Jesus Christ came to save you because scripture says he
came to save sinners. The gospel is free and if you're
a sinner, he came to save you and bless God, you're saved if
he came to save you. This declaration of the sovereignty
of God does not keep people from being saved who otherwise would
have been. It doesn't do that. If you take it that way, you're
taking it the wrong way. God's sovereign grace saves people
who would most certainly have been damned, but he saves. So when we're preaching the absolute
sovereignty of God, the door of mercy is open wide to every
sinner. And the only thing that will
keep you from Christ is your personal righteousness. It's
not God's sovereignty that prevents you from coming to Christ. It's
your personal self-righteousness that keeps you from looking to
Christ alone. The door of mercy is open wide
to any sinner. He that cometh to me, the Lord
said, I will in no wise for no reason cast out. So don't don't
look at this declaration of God's sovereignty in salvation as closing
the door. It closes the door to the self-righteous,
but it opens up the door for anybody who needs Christ, anybody
who needs mercy. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. That is his promise. God's absolute sovereignty does
not prevent men from being saved. But let me ask you, are you one
of those people with a low view of Jesus Christ? You don't really believe that
every attribute of God dwells in his body. Do you believe that You're not
poor. You have a sense of entitlement. You're not beyond repair. You're
certainly not capped if you have a free will. You see why God
would save you. After all, you're as good as
anybody else, better than a lot. You are not a slave that's lost
everything, and you're not somebody without a penny's worth of merit
to pay. Now, if that would describe you,
you're someone who's passed by if you die that way. You're someone he's passed by
if you die that way. And it's all your fault. It's
all your fault. He's altogether glorious to not
have this high view of him. If you die that way. You're somebody
that he has passed by. Verse 28. And all they in the
synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. They were angry over what Jesus
Christ said. How could this be fair? How could
this be right? I mean, after all, look at us.
And he talks about us like that. And he makes us nothing but pawns
in God's hand. We don't like this. They rose
up, they thrust him out of the city and led him under the brow
of the hill, whereon their city was built, that they might cast
him down." Headlong, we're getting rid of this man. We're not gonna
listen to this anymore. But, I don't know how this happened.
I mean, they've got him up in their arms, getting ready to
throw him off the cliff. And somehow, you see his time is
not yet. The time was coming when he was
going to let men do what they want. That's the cross. But not
yet. Not yet. So he passed through
their midst and they weren't able to perform their wicked
design on him for this reason. He didn't let him. He didn't
let him. Now, we have, the scripture says,
all they in the synagogue. Everybody in there. He didn't
have one person at this time that maybe has decided. Really,
this was before the calling of the 12. All they, you read about
the calling after this, all they, everybody who listened to him
at this time, thumbs down on him. They did not believe. Why? They had a low view. They didn't believe Jesus Christ. is who he said he is. Now I want
to close by looking at something that's just the opposite. The
thief on the cross. Right now at any rate, other
than the Lord Jesus Christ, he's my favorite character in scripture.
Thief on the cross. He's nailed to a cross. And he sees that one beside him
hanging on a cross. Now, previously he'd been cursing
him, making fun of him, but something happened to that man. It's called
grace. It's called revelation. Something
happened to that man. As he saw his buddy cursing Christ,
he said, don't you fear God. That's God hanging beside us.
Don't you fear God, seeing you're in the same condemnation? And
we indeed justly, we're receiving the due reward of our deeds.
He didn't have any sense of entitlement that he had some kind of rights.
We're receiving exactly what we have coming. But this man,
this God man, hath done nothing amiss. He believed in the absolute
sinlessness of Jesus Christ. Do you believe he's God? Do you
believe he's sinless? Let's go on. He looked at that
one hanging on that tree that seemingly was so helpless, nailed
to a cross, and he said, Lord, You're the Lord. You're in control
of everything that's taking place. You're the Lord and you're going
to come back as a mighty reigning king. I know you're going to
die, but you're not going to stay dead. You're going to come
back as a mighty reigning king in your kingdom, as king of kings
and Lord of Lords. Remember me. Remember me when you come in
your kingdom. You're the Lord. And if you simply
remember me, if you own my worthless name before your father, nothing
else will need to be said. Remember me when you come into
your kingdom. And the Lord said to him, unlike
these people who tried to kill him, He said to him, this day thou
shalt be with me in paradise. Let's pray. Lord, we ask that we might be
among those that thy son has come to save, that we might see that we are
poor, brokenhearted, captive, blind, shattered, slaves in debt
with no ability to pay. Lord, you came to save such,
deliver us from being among those who have a low view of thy Son
and seem nothing more as the Son of Joseph. Lord, we say with
the Ethiopian eunuchs, Lord, we believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God. Lord, we ask in Christ's name
that you would create faith in each heart here according to
your will. enable us to believe Thy gospel.
In Christ's name we pray, amen.