Let's open with a word of prayer.
Our gracious Lord, we thank you for your grace. We thank you
for assembling your people here this morning and all whom you
are pleased to gather. Lord, we thank you that we may
hear your blessed word. And Lord, we ask for your grace,
for your mercy to help us to hear the gracious words of our
God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Lord, help us to hear
him, to believe, give us faith that looks away from self and
sees in Christ the sufficiency of our God to save us to the
uttermost, all in grace in him. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen. Titled the message this morning
grace words grace words And I want to turn to Luke chapter 4 Luke
chapter 4 And I'm going to begin reading
the first three verses of our text which begins in verse 14
Luke 4 14 We're told therein Jesus returned. He was returning from the wilderness
where he had been tempted by the devil to prove that he was
the Christ. To prove that he was the Christ.
And in that temptation we see confirmed to us that this is
the Christ. Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ,
the Son of the Living God. And he returned in the power
of the Spirit into Galilee. And there went out a fame of
him through all the region round about. He was from the area of
Galilee. Galilee was like a country area
of some podunk towns, these little towns, and there was nothing
special that, what was it, Nathaniel said to Philip when Philip said,
we found the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. And Nathaniel said,
Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Nazareth? And so he's
from that area, and his fame is spreading, and the people
are happy that he's a boy from their town, from their area. And he taught in their synagogues,
being glorified of all. 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. Now here we see the importance
of public worship. It is important. This is where
we worship our God and give Him thanks for what He's done for
us. This is where we hear the Word
of the Lord. This is where the Lord says that
He is pleased to meet with His people. and to bless His people. And we have this example of Christ
Himself, who doesn't receive the blessings that we need to
receive of God, but yet He came to worship God. He came and gives
us a wonderful example, setting a model for us. If you would
know God, then come to the services, praying, Lord, help me, teach
me, instruct me, Lord, give me what I need to hear. And you
that know what you are, in your heart, in this flesh, we need
the grace of God. We need to hear His word. Come, expecting to hear from
your God. seeking him to open your heart,
to open your ear, and to bless you, and to bless your family,
and to bless your brethren, to meet with his people here. Now,
in the public worship, Christ stood up for to read. And the
reason why we go to this book, the Bible, why we go to this
book, the Old Testament and the New, is because this is the inspired
Word of God. This is the book which our God
has given to us to reveal to us the salvation whom he has
sent into the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he stood up for to read and
Christ gives great significance to the Word. In fact, earlier
in this chapter he had come up from the temptation where the
devil tempted him to prove he was the Christ, and every time
Christ quoted scripture. Each time he was tempted, Christ
quoted this scripture right here, saying, it is written, man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God. And this is the word that proceeded
out of the mouth of God. This is the word that testifies
to us Christ, that reveals Christ to us. Look to Him. He is the servant of God. He
is the Son of God whom the Father sent to save His people from
their sins. He said, get thee behind me,
Satan, for it is written. And again he said, it is said,
it is said in the word of God thou shalt not tempt the Lord
thy God. And James tells us to receive
with meekness the engrafted word, that word sown in the heart of
God's people. Receive that precious word which
is able to save your souls. We must hear the word of God. Read it. Come to hear it preached. Come to hear it read publicly.
Come to where Christ is preached and exalted before the people,
praying and begging that God would open your ear and your
heart, helping you to hear it. Not wondering if someone else
is hearing it. Lord, am I hearing it? Am I hearing your word? All
we see here today that gathered here before the Lord in that
synagogue, they were gathered there to hear the Word. They
were gathered. But none of them heard that Word
except to whom God was gracious. And so we need that grace of
God to help us to hear it. This passage shows to us the
dark imaginations, the dark heart of the people, of all people,
It shows us what sinners we are and our great need of the Lord
Jesus Christ to be gracious to us, to help us, to open our hearts. In our minds, we have a great
familiarity with God, especially those who have grown up under
the sound of grace, under the preaching of grace, under the
preaching of Christ. We have a great familiarity with
God, and so we tend to be careless. careless with what we've heard,
careless with this word, careless and very familiar with what we've
heard of Christ. And men are destroyed for such
knowledge. Men are destroyed in self-righteousness,
thinking that they know what they need to know about God and
trusting their own strength, trusting their own wisdom, trusting
their own knowledge. And by willful disobedience,
they ignore the word of God and they won't hear it. They will
not come to Christ that they might be saved because they already
know everything. They've heard it all before and
it becomes familiar and easily forgettable to the natural man. And what we see in this passage
as we get to the end is because of the hardness of their hearts
and the blindness of man, Christ passed right through them. He passed them by and they gained
nothing from him. They learned nothing. They heard
nothing. What this says to me and what
it says to each of us here, beg the Lord beg him for his mercy
and grace. Lord, help me! Save me! Don't pass me by, Lord! Have
mercy on me! I'm the sinner who needs your
grace, Lord. Save me. That's what this word
shows us this morning. Teach me, Lord, what you're saying.
It says in Luke 24, 45, after He had spoken to His disciples
and showed them from the Word, from Moses and the Psalms and
the Prophets, what they said of Christ. It says, then opened
He their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. We want to understand the Scriptures. And the Scriptures speak of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is the salvation of God. Let's see now what our Savior
read in verse 17 down through 20. 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. Jesus Christ is the promised
seed of God. He's the promised seed that should
come into the earth, that should come being sent of God to save
his people, to redeem them from their ruin and destruction in
Adam. We all come from Adam's seed. Adam sinned in the garden and
we in Adam. Adam had no children then. All
his seed was in him. And when he died, we died. When he became corrupted, all
his seed in him was corrupted, spiritually dead. And so we come
forth naturally of that corrupt, ruined, defiled seed. That's
why we are sinners. Why we come forth speaking lies
and doing the things and saying the things that we do and have
no interest in the true and living God. By nature we could care
less about God. All we care about is ourselves
and what we're doing and what we want to do. That's what we're
looking to do. We're not thinking of God. He's far from our thoughts.
Except in a very careless, light manner by nature. And so, Christ
is, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Christ, the salvation sent
of God. And there's none like Him. When
He came, the Lord gave Him the Spirit without measure. There's nothing impossible for
Him to do. Nothing that He could not do.
He could do all things. He could have delivered Himself
from the cross if He wanted to. But he did it for his love for
his people, and he laid down his life to save them, to put
away their sins. Otherwise, we'd all be in our
sins and would all die in our sins. And so these descriptions
that Christ came to preach the gospel to the poor, our Lord's
describing for us those whom he came to save. He's making
known who it is that he laid down his life for. He's revealing
who his sheep are, as opposed to those who are not his sheep. So these descriptions describe
us all by nature, all men by nature, but those that are the
Lord's people, they hear these words and they identify with
these words. They recognize this is speaking
of me. I'm the one that is poor, not
monetarily poor, poor in spirit, poor of goodness, poor of good
works and righteousness. I don't have those things by
nature. I'm destitute of those things. I'm a bankrupt, sinner
by nature. I want to hear what he says,
because he says, I came to preach good news. I've got good news
for you that are poor, that have no righteousness. And we hear
this and think, wait a minute, he didn't come to save the worthy.
He didn't come to save the good people. He didn't come to save
the righteous. He came to save poor, rebel sinners,
bankrupt, who have nothing to give to God. That's whom Christ
came to save. He didn't come to save everyone.
He came to save those that are poor. You see, the Father has a people
whom He chose and before the foundation of the world committed
them to the care of Christ, gave them to His Son for Him to provide
everything they need for their salvation. God gave it all into
the hands of Jesus Christ His Son, the Son of God. whom he
loved and sent into the world to save the people that he loves
and gave to Christ. Gave them, and the way they're
described, it's not by face or place or race or whatever. They're described as poor. Poor, having nothing to give
to God. Hold your place there and look
for a moment in John 17. John 17, and let's look at verse
two, and then one other verse in that chapter. John 17. That's
right after Luke. Our Lord says, as he's praying
to the Father, as thou hast given him, the Christ, whom you sent
power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life, to
who? To as many as thou hast given
him. There's an elect remnant, a remnant
according to the election of grace that the Father gave to
the Son. Look at verse nine. He said,
I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but
for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. That's whom Christ came to save.
That's whom he came to lay down his life for, for those whom
the Father gave to him. And Christ says now, God has
anointed me to preach good news, the gospel, to the poor. God's people are bankrupt sinners. We have nothing to come to God
with to pay down our sin debt. When I have a little extra money,
if I've got a credit card bill or something like that, I send
a little extra over there to pay that bill down. And what
the natural man thinks is that he can come to God with a few
extra good works and say, Lord, put this on my account. Let's
whittle that debt down a little bit. Let's bring it down with
my good works. No! God doesn't receive that
which is born of the flesh. It's corrupt. It's enmity. It's
wickedness in God's sight. He's not looking for you and
me to come with good works and what we have done for Him. He's
declaring to us, telling us through the preaching of the gospel over
and over what He has done in His Son for His people, what
He has done to save His people. We don't save ourselves. God
saves sinners. He saves people who cannot save
themselves. And none are righteous. None
can save themselves. But how few hear this word, hear
the good news of this blessed word spoken by Christ himself
to his people. I've got good news for the poor. I've got good news for you who
have nothing. He said, blessed are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. He said, blessed
are you that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall
be filled. you that have no righteousness,
and say, how can a man or woman or child be righteous with holy
God? How can I be righteous? He says,
listen, look to my Son, look to Him, believe Him, come to
me, not in your own goodness, not in your own works, come to
me in Christ whom I have sent. Believe Him. Seek Him. Cry out for His mercy and grace. Cry out to be washed in His blood.
He receives all who come to Him. He turns none away. All who ask
Him find mercy and grace to help in their great time of need.
He says in His word, Ho, which means listen up. Listen up, everyone
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money,
no good works, no righteousness, nothing that speaks well for
them, he says, come ye, buy and eat with money that ain't yours.
with righteousness that isn't yours, but oh, it is yours by
the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Come in his righteousness,
buy and eat, fill up to the full, quench your thirst in the Lord
Jesus Christ. You that look to Christ and believe
on him, you'll never thirst again. You'll never want for another
righteousness. You won't be afraid to die. You'll
be looking forward to being with the Lord because you'll have
no sin. It's all been washed and put
away by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which he shed for
his people, for that very purpose. Look to Christ, believe him.
Next he says, God hath sent me, this is back in our text in Luke
4, God hath sent me to heal the broken hearted. Now, the broken-hearted
describes what we are in Adam. It speaks of our nature. Our
hearts are ruined. They're broken. They're defiled.
We are at fault. We are the rebels and sinners
against holy, perfect God. When describing the heart of
every man, of all of us here, the Prophet Jeremiah said, the
heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can know
it? That's how wicked we are. A company
like Disney tells you just follow your heart. Just do what your
heart tells you. No, don't do that because your
heart is deceitful. It's leading you astray. It's
taking you down a false path that leads to hell. Believe the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Look to him, cry out
to him for grace and mercy. David said in the Psalms, create
in me a clean heart. We need a new heart, not a reformed
heart, not a fixed heart. We need a new heart. Create in
me from scratch, Lord, by your grace, create in me a clean heart. I need a new heart, Lord. Save
me. I'm broken. I'm defiled. I'm ruined. Save me, Lord. Then
he says, that God sent him to preach deliverance to the captives,
to the captives. You know, we might think, but
what about this sin? What about this thing I've done?
What about that thing I've said? God knows our sin. He knows it
all. He knows everything we've done.
He knows things that we don't even realize are sins, and God
knows them, and yet he says, Come to me. I've come to preach
deliverance to the captives. You that are bound in sin, you
that are chained in darkness, come. Come, my people, come into
the light. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is why He came, to put away all the filth and grime of our
sin, to cleanse us in His blood. The natural man tries to get
religion, tries to get a track record of religion and good works
before he'll come to God. Let me work up a few changes
in myself and then I'll come to God. If you do that, you'll
never come. You'll never come. You'll keep
working and working and laboring down to the bone and you'll never
be set free. You'll never be delivered. Right
now. As the sinner you are, come to
Christ, falling at his feet, begging him for mercy and grace. He'll lift you up. He'll receive
you. He'll raise your head. He'll
bless you in himself with all his people. We read in Romans
8, 15, and 16 that the children of God have not received the
spirit again of bondage. We've not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear. That's laboring and working in
religion. That's not the spirit that our
Lord gives us. But ye have received the spirit of adoption, of adoption,
whereby we cry, Abba, Father. For the sake of Christ, we have
been adopted into the family of God by His grace and mercy
for what Christ has done for us. In Christ, the Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. In other words, God doesn't leave
His child in darkness. He doesn't leave them trusting
in their own works. He brings them out of that darkness
into the light. of the Lord Jesus Christ, where
we see He's all my salvation. God receives me, a sinner, for
Christ's sake. And He leads us and teaches us
and keeps us by the giving of His Spirit, who gives us life
and faith to hear the Word of Christ and to desire that Word
and to be blessed by that Word and to keep following Him. Even
when we stumble and fall, the Lord always lifts up His child,
teaching them, blessing them, and draws them again to Christ. He never leaves us in darkness. Christ is come, he says, for
recovering of sight to the blind. The simplicity of Christ is look
to Christ. It's the simplicity of Christ
that we are saved for Christ's sake. When He died, we died. His blood washes away the sin
of His people so that we stand before the all-seeing eye of
Holy God and He finds us faultless in Christ. It's that simple. It's not what you do or don't
do. It's what Christ has done. Believe Him. Trust Him. Lean
wholly upon Him. Don't go to death. Don't go to
sleep. Departing from this world, carrying
any extra work, hoping in anything you've done, hope in the Lord
Jesus Christ alone. He's all the sinner needs to
stand before God, accepted of him, holy and righteous in his
sight. Learned men study this word and
know these verses, know where to find these verses, know doctrines
better than many of us, and yet they perish in their sins. They
die in their sins because they think that is their righteousness. As Christ said to the Jews, you
search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal
life, but these scriptures are they which testify of me." This
whole word has concluded, and it tells us over and over again,
every one of these people in here is a sinner. Every single
one of these people mentioned in this book whom the Lord saves
is a sinner, save Christ. Except for the Lord Jesus Christ.
and the hosts of heaven. But all the people born of Adam
are sinners." And we see that. We see that testimony that we
would not hope and trust in our strength or our goodness, but
that our hope and trust would be in Christ who is spoken of
in every verse of this book. It's to turn us away from flesh
and turn us to Christ. And so while the natural man
doesn't receive these things and it's foolishness to him,
you that have no righteousness, you that are blind and have no
good works to bring you to God, you trust in him. And we see
it's the blessing of God that does it for us. In Matthew 11,
25, and 26, at that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank thee,
O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto
babes. People who know nothing. That's
us. Do you know nothing of God? Are
you blind by nature? Have you been fooled by what
you thought was righteousness and please God? He says, come. Come to Christ. And He reveals
everything we need to know of the Father. Look to Him. He is
the love of God toward us. Christ came to set at liberty
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord,
so that we are set free from all our debts, all our ruin,
to live in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now verse 20 says, And
he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and
sat down. And all the eyes of them that
were in the synagogue were fastened on him, looking intently at Christ. And he began to say unto them,
This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. He's telling them,
I am the Christ of whom you read and looked for in this scripture
here, in this book. I'm that one. I'm the Christ
of whom God is testifying to you. Verse 22, 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? We know this guy. We know this
kid. He grew up here among us. But
his words are words of grace. And that word gracious words
means grace words. He's preaching grace. And so
long as it was in a general sense, they heard it, and they were
willing to hear that word. These words are gracious words
because it reveals to us how that God saves sinners. These words are grace words because
they don't speak of what you and I need to do as sinners for
God, but what God has done for us through Christ for sinners. That's what they testify of.
You and I have done nothing worthy of God's forgiveness. Christ
has done everything worthy to obtain eternal redemption for
his people. These are grace words. And who
did Christ preach here? Christ preached Christ. Christ
opened the book. He preached Christ to the people. He testified of the grace of
God in Christ. That tells me what I'm to preach. That tells me and you what we
are to hear, what Christ has done to save sinners. The scriptures
tell us plainly the ministry that God has given to the church. It says in 2 Corinthians 5, 18
and 19, all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us, this is the ministry,
given to us the ministry of reconciliation. That's the ministry that our
God has given to us, the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, and is
not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed
unto us, the church, the word of reconciliation. That's what
we are to preach from the time that Christ opened the book.
and read those words. At the time when he closed that
book, Christ the Savior was declared to the people in the preaching
of the Word. That's what they heard. And if
God is pleased to bless His Word when this Word is finished, when
I'm done preaching the Word, all the eyes of the people that
are there in attendance will be fastened on Christ. Not on what I do, not on my flesh,
not on what I need to do for God, but what God has done for
me through Christ. That's where He's putting all
our eyes, fastening them on the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether they
believe Him or not, whether you believe Him or not, you're going
to hear Christ, and you're going to be looking at Christ. God
makes manifest a saver of his knowledge in that place by the
preaching of Christ. He is the sweet saver, the sweet
saver of Christ in them that believe and in them that perish. But that's where our eyes are
to be fixed, on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's what he does
through the preaching of the gospel. the preaching. Back in
Luke 4, Luke 4, Christ announced to them that he is the Christ
and they don't believe him. And so he's going to manifest
to them who are his sheep and who are not his sheep. And the
way that he does it is through preaching grace, continuing to
preach the grace of God. 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 here in thy country. We want to see these
miracles. They were demanding, they would
demand of Jesus of Nazareth to prove to them that he is the
Christ. That spirit that was in them
is the same spirit of the devil who tempted Jesus, our Lord and
Savior, to prove that He is the Christ. That's what they were
doing. They were of that spirit of their father, the devil. And
he's going to manifest it. He's going to prove it by preaching
grace. By preaching grace. Look at verse
24. He said unto them, verily I say
unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. 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, the prophet
sent, and none of them, sorry, I just got lost, was sent save
unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. a Gentile widow. He passed by
all those in Israel to go to a Gentile widow. All of them
were suffering. The rain wasn't falling on all
the land. They all needed food. They all
were thirsty. But God sent his prophet to a
widow in Sarepta, a Gentile woman. 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 so what our Savior is saying
here is that God is pleased to pass by all them that are religious,
all them who are law keepers, all them who sanctify themselves
that God would bless them. He's pleased to pass by all of
them and to reveal himself to poor, needy, bankrupt sinners
who have nothing to speak for themselves, who have nothing
to give to God. He raises up the base. He feeds the hungry. He cleanses the filthy. He gives
to the poor. He is merciful and gracious to
his people. We're reminded in this passage
of the grace of our God, because when they heard this, when they
heard this, they were filled with wrath. They heard what he
was saying. They rose up and thrust him out
of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon
their city was built. Their city was built upon a ruined
foundation. All who are trusting in this
flesh which we have received from Adam, it's an awful foundation. It's a foundation of sin that
is built on lies and sin. And that's why they would kill
Christ if they could have right then and there. They would have
thrown him off the brow, but he passing through the midst
of them went his way. They believed not because they
were not of his sheep. That's what we don't want. We
don't want Christ to pass through our midst and leave us to ourselves
and our own sin and ruin. God, come to hear His Word preached,
seeking God to bless His Word to your heart, to open your ear
to hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches, that we would
be fed and comforted and rest and anchor to the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's His grace and mercy which does that for the sinner
who has no righteousness of their own. I pray He bless that Word
to your hearts, brethren. Amen. Let's close in prayer and then
be dismissed. Our gracious Lord, we thank you again for your grace.
Lord, we thank you for your word. We ask that you would bless your
word. Don't leave us trusting in ourselves. Lord, not even
me. Standing here in this pulpit,
Lord, have mercy and grace on me and all your people that are
gathered here. Lord, bless them. Help us to
hear your word. Teach us, Lord, deliver us from
darkness and the wickedness of this flesh and self-righteousness
and confidence in ourselves. And show us Christ. It's in his
name we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, I went a little long,
so we'll take, let's come back at about eight after, Brother
Joe. Eight minutes after the hour.