Alright brethren, let's turn in our Bibles to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. We'll begin reading in verse 14. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee. and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

There are a lot of scriptures, brethren, that speak of the Lord being in the spirit and led of the spirit. Verse one, he was full of the Holy Ghost and was led into the wilderness. There's a lot of scriptures like that, and it reminds us that our Savior, the Son of God, really did take our nature, and he really did become a man, and walk dependent upon the Father and the Spirit, and the power of the Spirit.

Verse 15 says, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. His fame had spread, and they were saying good things about him at this point. But that's gonna change, not very long. Verse 16, and he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. This is Isaiah 61. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 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 and he gave it again to the minister and sat down. and the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

Let's ask the Lord's blessing, brethren. Our great God and our Savior, Lord, we need the power of the Holy Spirit We need to be taught in spirit and in truth. And we ask you, Lord, to please do that for us now. Be the teacher here. And just as you were that day, we ask you, Lord, to preach your gospel and make it come in power into our hearts. Thank you for this day, Lord. Thank you for your word, for your people, for our brethren, and for saving us by your precious blood. It's in the name of the Lord Jesus that we ask these things. Amen.

Now, here in this passage, the Lord is telling us that God sent him, God anointed him, God sent him, and he's declaring what God sent him to do. what God sent him to do, what God sent him to preach, and to whom. I've titled this The Gospel Preaching the Gospel, and that's what we have here. We have Christ who is the gospel preaching the gospel.

Now, the first thing we see is he declares how he came to be the preacher. how he came to be the preacher. Verse 18, he said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me. We know when the Lord was baptized, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit came down upon him. That's when the Lord anointed him. The Father anointed him for this ministry, for his public work. And the father spoke from heaven and said, thou art my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And so the Lord Jesus is the chief shepherd. He is the pastor. That's what the word shepherd means in the Greek, is pastor. That word elder, bishop, shepherd, pastor, and prophet all refer to the same office, the same office. Under the Old Testament, Lord's preacher, his pastor, was the prophet. And under the New, it has these other names, elder, bishop, shepherd, pastor. But the Lord Jesus is the preeminent shepherd. He is the prophet. You were a sheep going astray, but you're now returned to the shepherd and bishop of your soul.

Our Savior didn't make himself a preacher. And when he calls a preacher, that's what he makes his preacher want. You don't want to be running on your own. You want the Lord to send you, because we need his presence.

The Hebrew writer said, no man takes this honor to himself, but him that's called of God, like Aaron, the high priest. And he said, and so Christ didn't take this honor upon himself. God called him and God sent him. And this is the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 18.15. Moses said, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee from the midst of thee of thy brethren a prophet like unto me. Unto him ye shall hearken. So Christ is the prophet.

And look what he says the father sent him to do. He said, the father sent me to preach the gospel. Isaiah called it good tidings. and it is good tidings. For the sinner that knows he is a sinner, the gospel is good tidings. And this is where I get this title of the gospel preaching the gospel.

Go with me again to John and look at chapter 17, John 17. In verse 19, He said, for their sakes, for the sake of those the Father gave to him, he said, that's who he's praying for, and he said, for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth. He is the truth, and he set himself apart, and he took the form of a servant to work the works that no man could work, to work the works by which he would save his people, that him and his work would be what we preach through which he sanctifies his brethren.

So you got the gospel himself saying, I sanctify myself to work the works of the gospel so that when you hear the gospel preached, the Lord will use that and sanctify you. This is the gospel preaching the gospel. He's still preaching, and he's still working the works that he's gonna say here.

When Peter was on the day of Pentecost, he said, he being by the right hand of God, sat down at God's right hand, he shed forth this, which you see in here. He sent the Spirit, he called his people, he preached through his apostles, and he called his people, and he's still doing that. and he's still doing it today, and he will. He gets the glory of calling his people, and he will until he's called the last one.

So, the father sent him, the father anointed him, and he anointed him to come forth and preach the gospel, the gospel preaching the gospel.

Now, he's gonna tell us who he is sent to, who this is gonna be glad tidings unto. All right, verse 18. He said, he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Isaiah says it's the meek. The poor and the meek are referring to the exact same thing. The poor and the meek.

We're not poor and meek by nature. We're proud by nature. And it's the Lord by the spirit of our Redeemer that makes us meek and poor. He makes us behold our sin, that we were altogether unholy, altogether unrighteous, that Christ is our only salvation, and he humbles his people. He puts a new spirit like his spirit. He's the meek one, and he put the spirit of himself in his people.

And it's by him making us see that he's the only righteousness. There's no other righteousness but our Redeemer, and making us behold Him being our righteousness reveals to us that we don't have a righteousness outside of Him, and He humbles you by that. We're made to know we're the ungodly and that He is the Holy One. When the Lord makes us meek and poor, knowing we're the sinner and that Christ alone is our acceptance with God, brethren, that's when we find all our rejoicing in Christ only. That's so in the scripture. Isaiah 29, 19, he says, listen to this, Isaiah 29, 19. He says, the meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord. He said, and the poor When you find the meek, you're gonna find the poor with it a lot of times, because they're talking about the same trait that He creates in His people. The poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. Nobody else. He's our joy, He's our peace, He's our everything. And we find all our confidence in the Holy One of Israel, all our rejoicing in Him.

In Zephaniah 3, He said, I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people. That's another thing about this characteristic of being meek and poor is the afflicted people. I'll leave in the midst of them the afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord. We're not looking to anybody else but Him. You know, we say that, we preach that, Men don't want to say, well, now, but we got to do this or that. But you're going to find the Lord saying his people, by his spirit, are going to glory only in the Lord. We're going to trust only in the Lord, rejoice only in the Lord.

He said in Matthew 5, 3, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That's our happiness. We're happy. It doesn't make sense, does it? You're poor, you're meek, you're afflicted, and you're happy. Why? Because yours is the kingdom of heaven. Christ has purchased that right for his people.

Then he said there, he said, I came to save the brokenhearted. Verse 18, Luke 4, 18, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. How did a heart get broke? He broke it, and then he heals it. That's this two-edged sword of the gospel to kill and to make alive, to wound and to heal. That's what he does to this gospel. When he gives you the new heart, he makes you know you're the sinner. Everything we thought was good, we find out was nothing but sin. And then he makes you behold what he's done for his people and how he saved his people and he heals us. He heals us. He came to heal the brokenhearted.

He said in Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as of a contrite spirit. Isn't that just like, when you think about the world and the general way of man, we are, everybody is really proud, I mean we're proud creature man is. And it takes the grace of God to make us broken hearted and to make us poor in spirit. This is not talking about money. This is talking about in spirit, by knowing that there's nothing in us to look to, only the Lord Jesus.

You know, when men want to talk about sacrificing to God and giving God something, well, what are we going to sacrifice to God that He didn't create, that He didn't give to us. You know, if you're gonna give to somebody something, you're giving them something they don't have. And we don't have anything that we can give to God that He didn't already create. It's all His. So what are we gonna sacrifice to Him? Listen to this, Isaiah 66, two, He said, all those things hath mine hand made. I made all the things that you would sacrifice, and all those things have been, saith the Lord. But to this man will I look, to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. And he says, the sacrifices of God. This is when David was speaking in Psalm 51. He said, the sacrifices of God. God said, I've made all these things you're gonna try to sacrifice to me. But the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Why is that? Why is a broken heart the sacrifice that pleases God? Because a broken heart is looking to the one sacrifice for sin that made us righteous, Christ. The one sacrifice is Christ who made us He sanctified us and perfected us in righteousness. And a broken heart, trusting only in Him, we're coming to God only through Him. And so the sacrifices that please God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

That the first and preeminent man who was poor and of a contrite spirit and trembled at the word of the Lord is our Savior. He depended entirely upon the Father when he walked here, representing us in perfect faith. And he really does, it's his spirit that is in his people that makes us humble and tremble at God's word. And that makes you look only to Christ, and that's what pleases God. That's why the sacrifices of a broken spirit, they're well-pleasing to God. The sacrifices he's pleased with, because it's Christ only.

We're gonna look at Isaiah 57 in the second hour. But it's that passage that says, he's the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity. His name is holy, and he said, I dwell in the high and holy place. The heavens can't contain him. God is so vast and so large and so everywhere, and yet he says, and I dwell with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble, to revive the heart of the contrite ones. He healeth the broken in heart. He comes and revives us and He heals the broken in heart and He binds up their wounds, He said. That's our Savior. That's what He was sent to do.

And then He said here that He was sent to preach to the blind and bruised captives. Blind, bruised, and captive. He said in Luke 4, 18, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised. We're blind, totally blind by nature, spiritually blind, and Christ heals us. He is the light. He gives us sight.

Whenever the Lord said, I'm gonna give you for a covenant for a light of the Gentiles to open the prison and to lead the prisoners out, well, we're the prisoner. We were under the guilt of the law. The law had arrested us and put us in prison because we broke the law, and we couldn't get out of that prison. And then we had that sin nature that is a bondage to us. We couldn't break free from our sin nature and believe on the Lord Jesus. We're blind. We couldn't see him. We were captive in the prison under the curse of the law and our sin nature, and we were bruised from the self-inflicted wounds from, you know, trying to, all you read about Martin Luther and all the things he did to himself when he was lost and he was trying to make a sacrifice to God and how he would whip himself and put himself through all sorts of torture, plus all the bruising that come with the fall.

And we're so captive and so incapable of freeing ourselves, we were blind and couldn't even see the way out of the prison. And he comes and he's the light, sets you free. He said in Isaiah 42, 7, I'm not, you can turn here, but I'm just giving them to you because we've been looking at these in Isaiah, but Isaiah 42, 7, the father declared to the son, I'm giving you for a covenant, for a light, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, to open the blind eyes and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

Aren't you thankful that you have sight to read that and to see who that speaks about? There was a time we could not read the word and see Christ. Now you can read and see Christ. You see that's him. It's even sometimes I think we forget how What a blessing it is just to see him in the scripture. You take for granted, I can see him now. But there was a time we couldn't, and there's a host of people in this world that cannot see Christ in these scriptures. Cannot, and he's made you to see. He's given you sight to see. We were in darkness, and he's the light. He's the light.

Look at Psalm 107.10. This puts it all together. Psalm 107.10. Verse nine says, he satisfied the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness, such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death being bound in affliction and iron. That was us. That's his people by nature. Because they rebelled against the words of God and contemned the counsel of the Most High, therefore he brought down their heart with labor. They fell down and there was none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and he saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and break their bands asunder.

Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men, for he hath broken the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron asunder. That's what he did by laying down his life on Calvary's cross for his people. He came and broke the bars that were holding us, opened the prison, Now the law says we must be set free from prison. We must be set free, justified, and no record of any crimes whatsoever.

Now, here's the most important point I want you to get. He was sent to do all this. He did it himself by his works on this earth. but he was sent to preach the gospel, and that's how he would accomplish all this in his people, through the preaching of this very word. He said, verse 19, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. You know, that's the year of Jubilee. The acceptable year of the Lord is the year of Jubilee. The gospel Jubilee. It pictured the fact that Christ came and successfully accomplished making atonement for his people, for our sins.

On the day of Jubilee, in the old covenant law, God said that the 50th year, they were to blow the trumpet. And they blew that trumpet. That's what the preaching of this gospel is, the blowing of the trumpet. And on that day, when they blew the trumpet, they proclaimed liberty to all the slaves. Everybody that had become indebted and sold themselves to pay off their debt were set free on the 50th year. He proclaimed all their debts were cleared. You can read about this in Leviticus 25. All their debts were cleared, and all their possessions were restored to them. They got their land back. Everything was clear. And the whole land was to rest, the whole land.

That's what Christ accomplished for his people by making atonement for us with God. He made us at one with God, at one mint with God. He wiped all our debts clear. He restored more than we lost in Adam. Eternal righteousness, eternal life, everlasting, eternal redemption that can never be lost again. He gave us rest in him. He set the captives free. He did that. That's what he was declaring when he said it is finished. He accomplished that. And that's what he's gonna do through this gospel. That's what we're to preach through this gospel.

And it's not just when he first calls you, it's the whole way. This is how he keeps freeing you and keeps you from being captive.

I think I told you, I took that Leviticus 25 and I just wanted to see, because I'm not smart enough to do it, figure it myself, but I wanted to see over 10 generations what would happen to families that were under that form of civil law. It has to be the best form of a government for a city and a country than any because God gave it. And it said that, you know, it didn't allow anybody to monopolize and take advantage of the poor. It made sure the poor got their land back and their children, their grandchildren would have it stayed in the family, you know, and it was enough to let some get wealthy enough that they could provide for the poor, but not enough that they could take advantage of the poor. And it worked so that the poor never could lose everything that belonged to them.

But you know, here's the greatest blessing of all that I saw in that. The one, all the families fared well over 10 years, but the one group that never, they never sank into poverty and they never got wealthy, they just had everything they needed the whole time was the priests. And Christ has made his people priest unto God by his precious blood. And he's not gonna let you get so wealthy in this life that you forget him. And he's not gonna let you sink into poverty so that you curse his name. He's gonna keep you with everything you need because he's provided every spiritual thing we need, every blessing we need. And so he's gonna provide for you that he laid down his life for.

And then at the end, look here now, and it says Luke 420, and he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister. Now, I'm gonna allegorize a little bit here. He closed the book. Scripture says he's the author and finisher of faith. The author, he wrote the book, and he came and fulfilled everything that was written, and he closed the book. He accomplished it. And then he gives the book to his minister. And he sends forth his minister to preach what he's done. Just like he was sent to preach the gospel, now you go forth and preach what I've done.

And it says, and the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. That's what he's gonna do for his people. He's gonna turn your eyes and fasten them on him. And he began to say unto them, me preaching's not gonna do it, it's him speaking to you. And declaring this right here, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ear. And when you hear the gospel preached and Christ speaks into your heart and says, I fulfilled this, and I fulfilled it for you, that's how he gives you faith. That's how he renews you, revives you, keeps you walking by faith, That's how he saves us from the first hour he calls us till he calls us home. It's right there. It's done. It is done, and he fulfilled it all.

Brethren, cease from any works of trying to make acceptance with God. Don't let anything in this world turn you from Christ. Don't let your sin take you from him. Don't let self-righteousness take you from him. Don't let anything that is us of us turn you from Christ. Keep looking to him. When you're down and you're troubled and you need to be revived, go to this book and look for him. Go to Isaiah 53 and read about what he's accomplished. And go to him and ask him, Lord, revive me. Please revive me. Remind me again what you've done for me. And get under the gospel and hear him preached. and camp out right there. That's what Brother Henry used to say, camp out. Camp out at Christ's feet and look only to him.

And brethren, he's not gonna lose his people. He's not gonna lose us. It cost him too dearly, cost him his blood, and he's made us rich by becoming poor in our place, and he's gonna keep everyone He's gonna keep his people. And brethren, if you hear your brothers down or troubled or something's wrong, how did God save you? How did the Lord save you? He came and preached this gospel to you. He made you see what he did for you. So go to your brother and remind him what Christ did.

You say, well, what if they, They need this or that, or they need to be corrected. There is no correction, no chastening like hearing about the forgiveness of our sins for Christ's sake. That will humble you, that will correct you. If your brother needs correcting, didn't you need correcting when you didn't know him? That's the ultimate correction, was to be taught the gospel and given a heart to believe it. declare the same thing to one another, and that's, he's gonna use us like that and help each other and save, keep saving us.

All right, brethren, let's thank him. Our father, we thank you for sending your dear son. Lord, we thank you for representing us and for sanctifying yourself and accomplishing all the works whereby you are the gospel, and then preaching it to us and saving us and sanctifying us. Lord, keep us by your presence. Keep us separated unto you. Keep us from our own sin nature and from anything in this world. Keep us in you.

Lord, we pray for our brethren who, sick in bodily ways, You're the only one that can heal. But more times than not, we really need more than anything else. We need to hear and be reminded what you've done and how you are all our inheritance and all our salvation. So Lord, we ask you, revive them and renew them in spirit. And Lord, if you will, heal their body whatever else they need. Lord, we pray for those that haven't believed on you, that you'd be pleased to call them in your time. You know where they are. You have their name on your heart. And we ask, Lord, that you'd call them through this word. Thank you so much for grace. Thank you so much for giving us faith to believe and trust you. You are the unspeakable gift, Lord, and we're so thankful. Forgive us for our doubting and forgive us for trying to lean on our own arm. Lord, we're sheep and we need you to constantly shepherd us. Thank you, Lord. In Christ's name, amen.

? Work's done by me
It was Christ who died, was crucified.