This morning in Luke chapter
4 we come to the message that our Lord preached when He came
to Nazareth. This is the message that Christ
preached at Nazareth. He had just been baptized in
the River Jordan by John the Baptist, and then we are told
that He was led of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the
devil. And there he showed himself the
fit sacrifice, the faithful Savior of his people. He showed himself
fit in every way. Now we're told in verse 14, Luke
4, 14, And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into
Galilee, that's the area where he was from in the northern part
of Israel. And there went out a fame of him through all the
region round about, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified
of all. And he came to Nazareth, which
was in Galilee, 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. Now there's a few things here
of note that we'll take notice of before we go on to the message. We see here the importance and
the honor of public worship. Christ, our Savior, himself gave
honor and showed the importance of the public worship of God,
being assembled with the people of God, and he did it publicly. It wasn't just with a public
group of people, but it was as public as it could be in the
synagogue there. He went where the people of God
were. And we see that he did this as
he was going up to Galilee. He would go into the synagogues
and teach the people there. And then once he got to Nazareth,
he did the same. He went into the synagogue. And what it shows us, when our
Savior shows us the importance of public worship, we take notice
of that. We take notice of that. If you
would know God. Come to where God promises to
meet with his people and be made a partaker. If you believe Christ,
partake in those ordinances that our God gives us through baptism,
believer's baptism, taking the Lord's Supper together with his
people and meeting together with his people, worshiping your God
together, singing the hymns and praying and the reading of the
public reading of the scriptures and the preaching of the word.
It's a blessing for the people of God. Now, in that public worship,
we're told that Christ stood up to read. And I believe that's
the only time that we're ever told that Christ stood up to
read in the synagogue. Maybe he did that each time before
he taught, but this time it's marked. And I could see why. This is Nazareth. This was the
synagogue that he went to as a boy. And perhaps they had him
read often when he was there. And so he stood up to read. And
perhaps it was because he was one of their sons of Nazareth. They knew him. And this was something
he did. And they would soon say, in verse 22, they would say,
is not this Joseph's son? And there's a sense there in
which at first they seemed to like that. It wasn't something
they said negative at first, I don't believe, but they seemed
to like that idea at first. Perhaps they felt a little pride.
Today, if someone's famous, you often see how their town or city
where they're from likes that. They celebrate that. They feel
a part of that. He was raised like one of us
and went to our schools and he had the same teachers we had
and went to the same places we go to and hung out at and things
like that. And so they seem to like it at
first, but it would become a stumbling block to them, and it prevented
them from being able to hear what the Lord was declaring as
our great prophet, as our great prophet. We are to hear our Savior. He is the Lord. He is the Savior
of God's people. He teaches us and leads us to
the Father. We're to hear Him. And so it
proved to be a stumbling block, preventing them to hear. And
this is true of all in religion, all who are taken up with dead
letter religion. Even if you're under the truth
and hearing the gospel, if all we are is of the flesh, then
we don't hear Christ and our religion. Our pride of face and
race and place can all be stumbling blocks that keep us from hearing
what we need to hear as needy sinners. as needy sinners. And
so one of the things that we see here when Christ goes to
Nazareth, his hometown of Nazareth, is that there is a great danger
for every one of us born of Adam's seed in having fleshly confidences
and trusting in our fleshly advantages. And we look at what we've done.
and how we've protected ourselves or got ourselves into this faith
or whatever it is, I don't do that, I do this, all these things
can be a stumbling block when we put confidence in those things
and think that's my salvation. I've arrived at the truth, this
is my salvation. And it was a stumbling block
to all of Israel with regards to Christ because They were children
of Abraham. They were sons and daughters
of Abraham. They're already the elect as far as they're concerned.
We are the chosen seed of God and God loves us. What do we
need your righteousness for? We have our own righteousness
of the law. And so they wouldn't hear Christ
when he told them, if you don't believe that I am he, you shall
die in your sins. And that angered them because
it was cutting across their fleshly confidences that they hoped in.
And so not only for the people of God was it a stumbling block,
but it also was a problem for them of Nazareth. Because they
felt like, well, we've even got an extra bonus here because he's
one of us. And so we really should see some
extra advantages of him being one of us from Nazareth. Now,
both of these fleshly advantages to keep them from hearing Christ.
That's why it's a stumbling block. They would not hear Christ. They
could not get over the things they saw in the flesh and what
they believed about themselves in the flesh. And so we're to
hear that because many of us are professing Christians and
professing believers and we've spent years in the truth and
heard the truth and have confidence in those things. But that's where
it's a danger. We're not to have fleshly confidences. Paul said we have no confidence
in the flesh. Our confidence is Christ and
Christ alone. And that's what the Lord shows
us. And that's why he, one of the reasons he gives us trials,
it's to separate us and break us from fleshly vain confidences
and to humble us when we have need of humbling. to not trust
in those things but to trust in the Lord through it and we
see his faithfulness when he does that for us because we all
need it every one of us and certainly myself I can confess I need the
humbling of the Lord it's him I thank the Lord for every time
he brings me low, because I need it. And so what he's showing
us, it's not religion. It's not even being a partaker
of the ordinances, though they're good. And the Lord gives them
to his people to encourage us. Those ordinances are good, but
being baptized, coming to public worship, partaking of the Lord's
Supper, these things are good. But that's not our salvation.
Every one of us must enter through the door. Christ is the door.
We all go through Christ. Without Christ, there is no life. There is no salvation. He said,
I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. There
is no salvation apart from that door. There's no salvation apart
from Christ. Just isn't going to happen. Now
our Lord's message that we'll see here is entirely of grace. You see grace traced out through
the whole message very clearly and they hated it. In Nazareth
they hated the grace that they heard preached. They could not
and would not hear it because they had a fleshly hope and confidence. I think it is very telling that
at the end of the message we are told that they drove Christ
up to the brow of the hill. Look at verse 28. And all they in the synagogue,
when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose
up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow
of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast
him down headlong. I think there's a picture there.
That is the foundation of man. That is the hill of our city
that we build all our hopes on is a fleshly vain confidence
and would destroy Christ and throw him off if we could, if
not for the grace of God. We're delivered from that foundation.
We're delivered from from the body of sin in Adam and that
dominion in Christ. He's our life. He's our inheritance.
He's the one in whom every child of God stands complete before
holy God. And so we see here that man hates
the grace of God because it pushes aside the fleshly advantages
that we're hoping in and thinking, this is why God will receive
me. Look what I did. Look what I said. It was so timely. Look how I did this. Look how
I endured that. We look at ourselves and look
at the fleshly advantages and the Lord through grace says,
you haven't done this. You're not your Savior. I'm the
Savior of my people. I do everything necessary for
your salvation so that he is the one we glory and rejoice
in. And so Christ, by preaching grace clearly, their fleshly
heart, their fleshly confidences were laid bare. And they showed
exactly what they were trusting in themselves. And they hated
him for preaching the truth. So like our Savior, we preach
grace, not only because it's the truth, but we declare the
grace of God because our Lord uses it to expose the heart of
man. It lays bare what the flesh trusts
in. When you hear the grace of God
and you hear that clearly And you realize, that's not what
I believe. I got to do something. I got to do something for the
Lord. What about what I did? What about my faith? What about
my works? And that's where man shows himself to hate the grace
of God, because it pushes aside his fleshly advantages and says,
that's not your salvation. Have no confidence in those things.
have every confidence in Christ, in Christ. Listen to Hebrews
4. Hebrews 4 verses 12 and 13 says, for the word of God is
quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart. The Lord knows exactly what we're
thinking. And he exposes it through the
preaching of Christ, through the grace of God in Christ. Neither
is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but
all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom
we have to do. That's not just for believers
only, that's unbelievers too. Everyone's laid bare before God.
Therefore, James says to us, receive with meekness the engrafted
word which is able to save your souls. Hear the word. Ask the
Lord every time. Lord, help me to hear it. I ask
the Lord. I'm studying the word and preaching
this to you. I'm preaching it to myself. I
need to hear this too. Because who am I? I'm just like
you. We're brethren. We're one in the same. We all
need the grace of God in Christ. We all need to hear this. And
so, our Lord, thankfully, won't have us think any differently
than what we need to think. He's going to call his people
out of darkness. He's going to call his sheep
and bring us to a knowledge, a saving knowledge, that Christ
is all. He's everything. He's my salvation. He's all my hope, all I need.
That's what he's convincing you of, that's what he's teaching
you, and that's what he gives you, and we are slow to hear
it, and we're thick-headed and hard-hearted all the time, except
the grace of God soften us and make us to hear it. Now, as I said, this whole message
from start to finish is of grace. So first, our Savior stands up
and he reads. And we see in this, this passage
from Isaiah that he's quoting from Isaiah 61, verses one and
two, and you can include three in there, but he's showing us
the fitness of Christ. The fitness and the perfection,
the sufficiency of Christ to save his people. Let's read verses
17 through 19. And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Isaiah, 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 hath 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 so this passage, now some
say that when you were asked to read in the synagogue, they
would tell you what you were going to read. I don't know.
They would have a priest read, they would have a Levite read,
and they'd usually have five people from what I've read or
looked into it. So I don't know, Christ might
have been told this, but if so, it shows the providence of God.
But really, there's not a place that you can read that doesn't
speak of Christ in some measure. But this is a clear passage that
this is the Messiah. And so, he's speaking of himself
here. And we see in the Messiah the
qualification. He tells us the Spirit of the
Lord is upon me. The Spirit of God was given to
Christ without measure. And then we see the commission
that the Father gave him. He hath anointed me. God the Father hath anointed
Christ to save his people from their sins. And so we are not
to ever forget this that our God sent our Father sent his
Son into the world robed in flesh just like you and me. because
we cannot save ourselves and He is the Savior. He's the one
who saves His people. So Christ came into the world
for this very purpose. Otherwise He would not have come
into the world like unto you and me in flesh. He wouldn't
have done it. And the Father sent His Son to
be our prophet, to show us the Father, to teach us the true
and living God, to make us to know what we're blind to and
don't know by nature. Christ reveals this to us. Christ
reveals the Father to us. Philip asked, Lord, show us the
Father, and it sufficeth us. And he said, Philip, have I been
with you so long, and still you don't know me? He that hath seen
me hath seen the Father. Christ is our great high priest.
He shows us and teaches us the Father. He is our great prophet,
and that's why three times in that passage it speaks of him
preaching. Preach the gospel, preach deliverance
of the captives, preach the acceptable year of the Lord. He sent our
priest, our prophet, to preach salvation to us. And the first
thing he says is, God sent me to preach the gospel to the poor. Who are the poor? It's a description
of his people. His people are poor. Not penniless
poor, necessarily. They might be. But what he's
saying is, we're poor in spirit. We don't have spiritual life
naturally. When we're born of Adam, we don't
have the Spirit of God. It must be given to us. It's
a gift given through Christ. Christ obtained that gift and
He gives His Holy Spirit to His people. And He shed His blood
for our redemption, to wash us of our sins, to obtain forgiveness
for our sins. If you are rich with righteousness
then there is no good news for you. Christ has no good news
to preach to you if you are righteous by your own works. There is no
pardon for you in Christ if you are righteous in yourselves because
Christ came specifically to declare this good news to the poor, to
the needy sinner. And no one else. And we'll soon
see, therefore, in this that it wasn't for Nazareth, it wasn't
for the people of Nazareth. There might have been a few,
but by and large, the people of Nazareth, there was no good
news that they heard. Next he says, God has sent me
to heal the brokenhearted. In other words, brethren, our
hearts are broken. Not just in sorrow and sadness,
but we're a broken people. We are a ruined people. We think
we know something, and we don't know anything about God except
God reveal it. We're a broken hearted people. A broken hearted people. If you
have no need of healing, then what do you need Christ for?
because Christ heals the broken hearted. His blood was shed for
the broken hearted. His blood was shed for those
ruined in sin, who have no light and no life. The prophet Jeremiah
describes us who are in Adam in this way saying, the heart
is deceitful above all things. Who can know it? We are desperately
wicked. This heart is desperately wicked.
Who can know it? And so Christ, the physician,
he heals the brokenness of his people. He takes out the hard
heart that we have naturally, and he gives us a soft heart. A heart of flesh is how he describes
it, pliable and soft and moldable by God, who conforms us to the
image of his son. He conforms us to the image of
his son. And he makes us new creatures.
Now Christ is sent of God to preach deliverance to the captives. If you are born free and were
never in bondage, as many of the Jews said when they heard
him say that, we were never, we're not children of slavery,
we weren't born into bondage, we're free born. We're free born. Well then, you've not been set
free by Christ. you're still utterly in darkness
to your captivity and you have no part with his people because
his people were captive by sin. They were captives. And now in
Christ, the body of sin is destroyed and he gives us his spirit and
he makes us new creatures and he frees us from the law of sin
and death wherein we were held. And we see the effects of that
body of sin in us because we labored, we spent to try and
free ourselves of sin, to free ourselves of that guilt. We kept
worrying and we're scared to die because we never knew if
we did enough. until we heard Christ. And he
was brought home to our hearts. And he settles his people and
says, my grace is sufficient for thee. Look to me. Trust me. Seek me. I'll give you everything
you need. I have given everything you need. Stay upon me. Rest in me. And so if you're not, if you
weren't in bondage to sin, if you freed yourself, you have
no part in Christ. No part in Christ. That's not
who he came to deliver. He came to deliver the captives.
Christ has come to give recovering of sight to the blind. Well,
if you're not blind by nature, if you see, then you have nothing
from Christ. Christ doesn't give you light
and life to see him. You won't receive sight from
Christ. The Jews said that, right? They said, are you saying we're
blind also? We see. And he said, well, because you
say you see, therefore your blindness remains. You'll stay in your
darkness. But he shows his people, I don't
see, I don't understand. I thought this way and everything
I see now is wrong. That's what he does for his people.
That's what he shows his people. And so our Lord gives us light
and spiritual life in himself. Christ came to set at liberty
them that are bruised to preach the acceptable year of the Lord
so that Christ is the salvation of his people in every way. And he's come to declare that
you that are sinners, that you that have offended and transgressed
and trespassed against holy God, I have set you free, he says.
You are delivered in me. You that believe me, Christ said,
you have no sin. Your sin doesn't remain. He's
removed it. and the guilt of it and the stain of it is put
away so that you have forgiveness and you have life with your God
in Christ. And we keep coming. We don't
ever stop coming in Christ. We keep coming because in this
flesh, we see the deadness of the flesh. We see that it's still
subject to that, to have to die. But the second death hath no
more dominion over us. We don't fear that second death.
We don't fear to stand before God in that judgment day, standing
in Christ. And that's what He's shown us.
And so we keep coming to the Lord. We keep looking to the
Lord. We don't ever stop coming in the Lord. He shows us. We need Him ever. It doesn't
get just put away and now we never sin and never fall. No,
we see our weakness. We see the infirmity of this
flesh that we may continue to see our need of Him and stay
upon Him and keep coming to the Lord in Christ our Savior. So this is a declaration of Christ
to His people. to the poor, the broken, the
needy sinner, to look to Christ, to believe Him. It's all of grace.
You're not going to work your own salvation. You're not going
to deliver yourselves. You're not going to set yourselves
free. You're going to be coming in Christ your whole life forever,
for all eternity. And that's a blessed thing to
us who are needy sinners and have no righteousness of our
own. who have fallen on our faces and been shown that I need the
grace of God. I need the grace of God today,
just as I needed him yesterday, and just as I'll need him tomorrow.
I ever need the grace of God. In another place he said, I am
the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. That's who Christ shed his blood
for, for the sheep. That's why he came, for the sheep. Again, in John 10, 26, and 27. But ye believe not, because ye
are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. He makes known his
people, that they are sheep. He didn't come and die for the
goats. He didn't shed his blood for the goats. He shed his blood
for the sheep. And he manifests those who are
his sheep, saying, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and
they follow me. And so the problem isn't with
Christ. The problem is with us and our own unbelief and our
unwillingness to hear. And we won't come to Christ that
we might have life, except God, by His grace, break through this
hard-heartedness and this stubbornness and unbelief and sin. And He
does that graciously for His people, and He manifests them
that are His, and them that are not His, through His grace. Because
His sheep hear it, and follow Christ. And those that are not
His sheep, they will not hear it, and they hate that message.
Because they trust their fleshly advantages, and their works in
the flesh, and don't like them being pushed aside. They want
to be celebrated. They want to be glorified for
their works, rather than Christ. Now, in 20 in verses 20-22 And
he closed the book, and 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. He's saying, I
am the Christ spoken of here in this scripture. And I'm here. I've arrived. That's what he's
saying. And all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious
words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, is
not this Joseph's son? Joseph's son. Now, what is called
here in the scripture as gracious words can be rightly translated
as grace words. What he spoke to them were grace
words. And he explained to them what
that passage was saying, just as I did for you there, of who
he came to save. And they're called grace words
because it declares not what you, the sinner, must do for
God to get yourself saved, Grace words declare what Christ has
done for sinners, what He did to save His people from their
sins. That's what grace words declare. They speak of Christ. A lot of
places speak of grace, and then they proceed to tell you what
you need to do to get into that grace and be saved by God. That's not grace words. That's
works. That's works salvation. Grace declares what Christ has
done to save His people, and they hear it, and they come to
Christ. They believe, Lord, you did that
for your people. Save me, Lord, help me. They
come, being called to the Lord by his grace, by his spirit,
he draws them to himself. So then we see Christ preached
Christ in this. He leaves us an example of what
we are to do. We're to preach Christ. We're
to speak of what He does graciously for His people. That's our ministry,
one of reconciliation. Listen to this, what Paul said
in 2 Corinthians 5 verses 18 and 19, all things are of God. who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation,
to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.
Nothing was left undone. Everything was done by Christ.
He reconciled the world unto himself, meaning not just Jews.
He has Gentiles. There's one Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's not two different saviors.
There's not two salvations. There's not two paths to God,
one for the Jews and one for the Gentiles. We all come in
Christ. We all come in the Lord Jesus
Christ, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed
unto us the word of reconciliation. And so we're declaring what Christ
has done. Did you hear that? He hath reconciled
us. The reconciliation has already
occurred. He's calling you, removing the enmity that's in us by the
giving of a spirit And he manifests his grace and power in us, which
believes, which believes, and cries out, Lord, save me. Save
me, wash me in your blood. But that means it's done. It's
already been done by Christ. And so from the time that Christ
opened that book to the closing of that book, Christ declared
his salvation to those that were there in Nazareth. He declared
it. Now, Christ was not done preaching
grace words to his hearers. He didn't end it right there.
And what we see here is this grace was being manifest in the
sheep, and God's will was being manifest in his sheep and in
the goats there. When Christ finished reading
to them, we're told the eyes of all them that were present
there in the synagogue were fastened on Christ. That's what we are
to do. When we preach, we're to preach
Christ. Why? Because then all the eyes
of everyone there is fastened on Christ. Just like they were
here. They're all looking to Christ.
And that's what preaching Christ does. It puts the eye on Christ. Not on man. Not on me. Not on
you. On Christ. And as he began to
preach to them, God's will began to be manifest. It manifests
itself in the people. God manifests the savor of his
knowledge in that place. that is, the sweet saver of Christ,
in them that are saved, and in them that perish." God was making
it known. Now initially they remembered
this is Joseph's son, and they may have liked that at first.
But not for very long, as he exposed their hearts, they began
to see, wait a minute, who is he to talk to us like that? Who
is he to say those things? He can't speak to us like that.
Who is he? Who does he think he is? This
is Joseph's son. This is our neighbor's kid. We
know who he is. He can't say these words. He can't do that. And so what
they're saying there is, well, they're showing that they're
goats, that they're not going to hear. Because God calls his sheep to
himself, and they hear Christ, and they believe Christ. Now
Christ revealed to them the will of the Father, that they were
not his sheep. Verse 23, he said unto them, ye will surely say
unto me this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have
heard done in Capernaum, do also hear in thy country. They're
going to demand that Christ prove that he's the Christ. You need
to prove to us that you can speak like that, that you're the Messiah.
They didn't believe that Jesus of Nazareth, that all those blessed
things spoken of the Messiah were fulfilled in him or met
in him. They didn't believe it. So they needed proof. They wanted
to see signs and wonders. He said, verse 24, verily I say
unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. And so we
see in here and throughout the scriptures and in our own hearts
also that people love to hear of grace until they understand
what grace means. Until they hear, wait a minute,
wait a minute, what about me? What about my works? What about
what I got to do? You're telling me that counts
for nothing? And that's when people get upset. I don't understand. Like, I got to do something.
Well, whatever is necessary, Christ gives it. Believe Him. Trust Him. All that you need,
He gives it to you graciously, freely, apart from your works.
And you will do the works of God. You will believe on Christ,
because that's what He gives to His people. Faith in Jesus
Christ. And so, the flesh doesn't want
to hear it. Now, verse 25 through 27. Remember,
these are grace words here. The whole thing is grace words.
He said, but I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years
and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land.
But unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta, a city
of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow, that is, a Gentile widow. None of the Jewish widows did
Elijah go to. He went to a Gentile widow. Verse
27, And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet,
and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian, also
a Gentile. And there were lepers in Elisha's
day. They were the ones who went out to the camp and saw the whole
army of our enemies has left. And they left all this food here.
And the whole city went out there to be fed and took of the spoils. And yet, none of those lepers
ever went to Elisha and said, may I be cleansed? Cleanse me. Save me. Nope. None of them asked
to be cleansed. But this one man from Syria,
a Gentile, He asked, Lord, cleanse me, save me. And so our Lord
is showing from the scriptures how that God passed by all those
Jews and all their trouble. It wasn't like they didn't have
trouble. They were supposed to be the people of God, and he
passed right by them and brought his gospel to a couple of Gentiles. to show them it's of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. It's
not of my works. It's not my doing. I don't have
any fleshly privilege. It doesn't matter if I'm physically
born of Abraham or come from the same city of Nazareth as
the Lord does. That's not salvation. It doesn't
matter if I've been in a Christian family my whole life. That's
not my salvation. I need to go through the door.
I need his grace to do that. Lord, show me that you're salvation. Lord, draw me and bring me through
the door. Bring me to Christ. Show me to Christ. That's what
he works in us. I mean, he works this. He shows us we're sinners,
and he gives us faith. And that's where it comes forth,
not from the flesh. It's not of the flesh. It's of
his grace. It's of his doing in us. And so we see that he healed
a couple of poor, broken-hearted, ruined sinners that were Gentiles
and passed by those Jews. And that angered those that hurt
him. That really made them mad. Because
he's saying it's not your flesh. It's not your confidences that
save you. Christ saves Christ. And so he's
declaring the sovereignty of God to save whom he will. And that offends the flesh. That offends our flesh. And those
who believe Christ, they're manifesting that Christ shed his blood for
them. Because faith is not of the flesh.
It's a spiritual gift given by Christ. And it shows Christ shed
his blood for that one. If you live and die with no faith
in Christ, then what you see there is Christ didn't shed his
blood for you. Not for that one. He shed his blood for those that
he brings forth that faith. He gives life. He's the successful
Savior. He does not fail. And what he
laid down his life to accomplish, that's accomplished in every
one of his people by his grace and power, his resurrection power.
Now, the Jews heard the same words that you just heard, and
their response proved exactly what Christ was saying about
God's grace. They rose up, being angry, drove him to the brow
of the hill to cast him off. And what does it say? He, passing
through the midst of them, went his way. And he never went back
to Nazareth and preached to them again that I see. He passed right
on by. And he continued to pass right
on by. And so we need Christ. That's what he's shown. Don't
trust your flesh. Don't trust your birth. Don't
trust things that you've seen in yourselves. Trust Christ. Trust Christ. And ask him, Lord,
please don't pass me by. Lord, if I'm blind, show me my
blindness. Give me sight. If I'm in darkness,
give me light. If I'm dead, give me life. And
that cry of faith is His work. That's His gift to His people
and to draw them out from the vain confidences and to give
us faith and hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. He works it in
you. He works it in you by His grace. And so I pray that that
word Though it's impossible for the flesh to hear, I pray He
gives that word and gives us that need, ever gives us that
need. Lord, let me not be confident
in this flesh, but confident in Christ always, always. Amen.