Open your Bibles, if you would,
to Luke chapter 4. Recently, a friend of mine preached
his very first message. And I got to thinking about my
first message, the first time I ever preached. And I went back
and looked at those notes, and they weren't quite as dreadful
as I feared that they would be, but they did need to be redone.
So I thought I would do that this evening. When Tom Hardy
first became pastor there at Zebulon, he hadn't moved there
yet, he called me and asked me to go preach for him on Wednesday
night. And I told him I'd go. And I
hung up the phone and I thought, well, why am I going to preach? And the great commandment to
God's preachers came to my mind that we are to preach Christ.
Preach Christ and Him crucified. Well, there are many Jesus's
preached today and many Christ's preached today. Well, who is,
the title of the message is this, who is the Lord Jesus Christ? Who is He? What distinguishes
the Christ of this Bible from all the other Jesus's, all the
other Christ's preached today? Well, the best way to answer
that question is this, who does the Lord say He is? He's exactly
who He says He is. So let's find out who He says
He is. In Luke chapter 4, this is our Lord's first public message,
and He tells us in His very first public message, His first one
that's recorded at any rate, who He is. Beginning 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. 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.
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 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." Now, here's our Lord. He's just
read this passage of Scripture, and now he's going to make some
comments. And the first thing he tells those listening, us
included here this evening, who is he? He's the promised Messiah. He's no mere man, he's the promised
Messiah. See there in verse 21? And he
began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled
in your ears. And all bearing witness had wondered
at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said,
Is not this Joseph's son? No, he's not Joseph's son. He's the son of God. He's the
son of Mary, but he's not Joseph's son. Our Lord Jesus had no human
father. So he did not partake in Adam's
guilt or Adam's nature. This man is God. He is God Almighty clothed in
human flesh. And he is the one promised and
the one pictured from Genesis 3 all throughout the Old Testament. He is not a mere man. He's the
promised Messiah. Secondly, he's no mere miracle
worker. Look at 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."
Now our Lord did many miracles, didn't he? And always to help
the needy. Never to show off. It was always
to help those in need. He healed the sick. He gave sight
to the blind. He gave hearing to the deaf.
He made the lame walk. He raised the dead. But his purpose
on this earth was not to amaze people with miracles. We're going
to see this in a minute. His purpose on this earth was
redemption. That's why the Father sent him,
not to amaze people with miracles. The miracles were to give evidence
that he's the Son of God. The miracles were to give evidence
he's the Messiah, fulfilling all the promises of the Messiah
in the Old Testament. They were not there to amaze
people. And that's what's wrong with the Pentecostal movement
and the healer movement in our day. Their goal is to amaze people
with miracles and to amaze people with evidences of the Spirit
and not salvation of sinners. It's always to give some, you
know, evidence of the Holy Spirit. Never the salvation of sinners. Not our Lord. His mission was
to save sinners. So He's not just a mere miracle
worker. And third, He tells them He's
the God of election. He's the sovereign Savior. Look
at verse 24, And he said, 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 Elias, 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 Elias
sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was
a widow. And many lepers were in Israel
in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed,
saving Nahum and the Syrian. Now our Lord knows He's going
to hear this objection. Why don't you do miracles here
at home like you've done in other cities? Why don't you do miracles
to help people in your hometown like you've done in surrounding
cities? And our Lord uses two very well-known examples to show
us He'll have mercy on whom he will have mercy. And those objects
of mercy are always the undeserving. They're always sinful men and
women. They're always the most unlikely
of people to receive mercy. In the time of Elijah, there
was a long famine. There wasn't a drop of rain for
three and a half years. Well, you can imagine how many
starving widows there were in Israel. There wasn't welfare
and social programs to help prop them up like there is today.
They just went without. And God didn't send His prophet
to any of them. Not one. He sent His prophet
Elijah to a Gentile widow. You remember the story. This
Gentile widow, she just had a little bit of meal left, a little bit
of oil, and she was going to make a cake for herself and her
son and just die. And God's prophet said, make
me a little cake first. She did. That barreled meal and
that cruise of oil never ran out throughout all that famine.
That's a Gentile woman. God sent his prophet to the unlikeliest
of widows, a Gentile woman. And during the time of Elisha,
there were many lepers in Israel. The Lord passed every one of
them by and had his prophet heal a Gentile leper. Now if it wasn't
bad enough, it's a Gentile leper. This is a hated Syrian who had
Israel under its thumb at the time, just oppressing Israel.
And if that wasn't bad enough, it wasn't just any Syrian, it
was Naaman, the general of the Syrian forces, second in command
in all of Syria, almost enemy number one. God sent his prophet
to that enemy and healed him of his leprosy. Now that shows
us God saves whom he will. And he saves sinners. God saves
sinners. Now, what's your reaction to
that? In your heart, what's your reaction to that? It makes sinners
cry for mercy. A sinner hears God soften. He saves whom he will. And he'll
save the unlikeliest of sinners. That makes a sinner beg for mercy. If you save sinners, please have
mercy on me. And that'll make the self-righteous
angry. That's what happened here in our text. And these self-righteous
religious people found out the fourth thing about our Lord.
He's not a God, little G, that man can control. Look at verse
28. And all they in the synagogue,
when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. And they
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. passing through the midst of
them when his way. They couldn't lay hand on him. He's not a God
that man can control. Now, if you look back in Isaiah
61, the passage Brother Eric read for us, this is the passage
that our Lord read and applied to himself. This day, this scripture
fulfilled in your ear, this is a prophecy of the coming Messiah. And let's look at a few things
here that our Lord applies this scripture to himself. Who is
the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, first of all, he's a preacher.
He is that prophet. Look in verse 1. The Spirit of
the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good tidings unto the meek. Now, our Lord Jesus was
anointed by the Holy Spirit. He had the Spirit without measure.
Well, of course he has the Spirit without measure. He's one with
the Holy Spirit. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit. Three individuals, but one God. He won with the Holy Spirit.
Now, in the Old Testament, this anointing meant something to
these people. In the Old Testament, kings and priests were the only
people who were anointed with oil. And that oil is a picture
of the Holy Spirit. Well, Christ was anointed king
and priest. He's the king-priest. Prophet,
priest, and king. We read there in Luke chapter
4, we read in verse 14 that Jesus returned in the power of the
Spirit under Galilee. He had the Spirit without measure.
Well, what did He come to Galilee to do? He came there to preach. The Father anointed the Son and
set Him on a mission. And He came preaching. Well,
now what did He preach? Good tidings. Good tidings of
God's love in Christ Jesus. Good tidings of salvation from
sin. Good tidings of peace with God
through the sacrifice of God's Son. Good tidings of the sacrifice
that enables God to be just and justifier to him which believeth
in Jesus. Good tidings of righteousness
through righteousness imputed, not our obedience to the law.
Those are good tidings. Well, the Lord came to preach
good tidings. Well, who is He going to preach to? To whom?
Well, Isaiah says He came to preach to the meek. And Luke
says to the poor, Isaiah and Luke are saying the exact same
thing. This word meek here means poor and humble and afflicted. Well, why would you preach the
gospel to the meek, the poor, the humble, the afflicted? Because
the gospel is good news to the spiritually poor. They're not
just a little short. You know, Jan and I, when we
were first married, every payday, It seemed like, anyway, the way
I remember it, it seemed like we're a little short. We just,
well, we'll save this one for next week and just, you know,
always trying to catch up. The Lord didn't come to preach
to those and declare the gospel to those who are just a little
short. He preaches to the spiritually bankrupt that have nothing to
pay. Absolutely nothing. There's no
goodness in them. There's no soundness in them.
They're bankrupt. And they're meek. You know who's
meek? Someone who's naked, in public,
and has no covering. There's a meek person. That'll
humble you pretty quick. This is who the Lord came to
preach to, those who are naked. They have no righteousness. They
have no covering before God. They're totally depraved sinners. And the gospel It's good news
to the poor. It's good news to the meek, the
humble. And that's who the Lord came
to preach to and that's who he came to save. To tell those spiritually
bankrupt people how their debts pay through the blood of his
sacrifice. To tell those naked people without
a covering before God how they're covered in the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel's good news to those
meek. And our Lord Jesus came as a preacher. Second, he came
as the healer, the great physician. He says here, he has sent me
to bind up the brokenhearted. Now, our Savior doesn't just
preach words to the meek. He touches them and heals them
of all their afflictions, just like that leper came and said,
Lord, if you will, you make me clean. And the Lord didn't just
use words, although in his case, that would have been enough.
He reached out and touched him and said, I will. And immediately
his leprosy was cleansed. The Lord is nigh unto them who
have a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."
Now these broken hearted, these are not just people who are sad
because they're having a bad day. These people, their hearts
are broken because of sin. Their sin. Well how does the
Lord heal the broken hearted? By taking our disease. and giving
us His help. The Great Physician comes and
binds up the heart that's broken over sin with His own blood. This is why our Lord suffered.
He suffered and He died to heal the brokenhearted. What did Isaiah
say? With His stripes, we're healed. We're healed because He took
our diseases and our sickness and the blood of Christ cleanses
every wound, heals every sickness, And here's why we need Christ
the Great Physician. This is why it's important that
He came as the Great Physician. We can't repair this old heart.
We can't repair the nature that we're born with. We have to have
a new one. A repairman won't do. We have
to have the Great Physician who can give a new heart and a new
nature. And He came as the Great Physician. Third, who is the Lord Jesus
Christ? He's the Deliverer. Verse 1 here says he came to
bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Now,
Isaiah could prophesy that one day Israel would be set free
from Babylon. They were in captivity to Babylon
at this time. Christ came and proclaimed His
people are free. During the Civil War, President
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. declared all the
slaves were free. The next morning in the deep
South, not one slave went free. President Lincoln had to send
his army into the heart of Dixie and win a war to set those slaves
free. Now the Jews, eventually they
will be set free from Babylon, but they're going to go into
captivity again. They're going to fall into idolatry and all
sorts of things, and they're going to go into captivity again.
The people that Christ sets free are free indeed. If the Son shall
make you free, you are free indeed, and they will be eternally free. Now, these captives, they're
captive in prison. They're held captive by sin.
They're imprisoned to the law. They're bound by Satan's power.
How on earth did they end up in prison? You know, I look at
these shows on TV, they show about life behind bars. I look
at some of them fellows and I'm not so sure I want them out.
I just, I feel a lot better with them behind bars. How'd these
people find themselves captives? In Adam. In Adam and their father
Adam. When Adam sinned, all men became
captives. We became captive to the law.
We became captive to a sinful nature and bound to a law that
we cannot keep. Men are not free to make a decision. I never, ever ask anyone to make
a decision for Jesus because you cannot do it. In our nature,
the nature that we're born with, you cannot do it. Luke says these
are bruised. These captives are bruised. They're
bruised and mangled by the fall. Now, if I had a bucket list,
one of the things that would be on my bucket list that I would
have to do when Janet was not looking, I would love to go to
Hawaii and cliff dive. I mean, I just think that would
be so much fun. I see people do that, and it's just like the
greatest fun in the world to me. Well, I was watching this
show on TV, and I guess cliff diving's not dangerous enough,
so these people were jumping off this cliff, But at the bottom
of these were huge, jagged boulders. So this is an added degree of
difficulty. You've got to jump over those boulders to get into
the water. And I thought, well, that doesn't
look like fun to me. Well, suppose we were cliff diving,
and you didn't make it. You jumped and landed on those
rocks. And there you lay, broken up. Your body just busted up
on those rocks. And in my generosity, I come down there. There you
are, bruised and mangled. And I tell you now, if you'll
just get up and go to the hospital, they've got just what you need
to fix you up. Well, that'd be wonderful, wouldn't it? Except
you can't get up and go to the hospital. Well now, I tell you,
if you just took the first step, I'll take you the rest of the
way and get you to the hospital and they'll fix you up. You can't
make the decision to get up off those rocks. You're trapped in
a body that's broken by the fall. That's our nature. We're trapped
in a nature that cannot and will not come to God. That's why we
need the Great Physician to give us a new nature. That's why we
need the Deliverer to come and set us free. Well, how does the
Lord set His people free? By being taken a prisoner in
their place. When that mob came to take our
Lord in the garden, what did they do? After He allowed it,
they bound Him and led Him away. He became captive, bound, just
like we are. Every one of us here is bound
and captive to sin. And the Lord Jesus was made to
be sin for His people and put that sin away with the sacrifice
of Himself as our substitute. And now His people are free from
the power of sin. We still sin, but it doesn't
have dominion over you anymore. He sets you free from that. We're
captives to Satan. We're held under the power of
the prince of the power of the air. The Lord Jesus crushed his
head at Calvary. Set his people free from the
power, the dominion of Satan. We're captives to the law. We
can't keep the law. But the Lord Jesus came and he
kept that law perfectly. Every jaw and every tittle. Not
only did he keep the law, he magnified it and made it honorable.
and set us free from the law. We're captives in this body to
death. Everyone was just sitting here
waiting for these bodies to die. But the Lord Jesus set his people
free from the fear of death. This body's still going to die.
We don't fear it. The believer looks forward to
it. He set us free from the fear of death by dying for us as our
substitute. He led captivity captive. by
allowing himself to become a captain and set his people free. He is
the great deliverer. He took all the punishment that
his people deserved and gave us his freedom. And brethren,
we're free in Christ. I can only imagine those slaves
there in the deep south, the war's over and they knew tomorrow
we're going free on the morrow. I've read where those slaves
stayed up all night. And if dawn began to approach,
they sent somebody east to get to the top of the hill and look
to see those first rays of sun coming up. And they'd turn around
and tell everybody, get ready. I see it. It's coming. Freedom's light is coming. I'm
here to tell you freedom's light has come. He's come. He's the
deliverer. Flee to him. We are free in Him,
free from the law, O happy condition. Jesus hath bled, and there is
remission. Cursed by the law and bruised
by the fall, grace hath redeemed us once for all. Free in Christ
the Deliverer. And that brings me to my fourth
point. Who is the Lord Jesus Christ? He's the Redeemer. Look here in verse 2, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord. Now what Isaiah is referring
to here is the year of Jubilee. Every seventh year, according
to that Old Testament law, was the Lord's year. It was to be
a year of rest, to rest the land and the people to rest. But the
seventh of those seven years, the 50th year, that was a special
year. That was the year of Jubilee.
And the Lord Jesus Christ, He is our Jubilee. Now four things
happened in the year of Jubilee. First, people who had sold themselves
into bondage because they could not pay their debts were set
free. If someone, if they had debts
and they couldn't pay, they had no other assets, they sold themselves
into slavery in order to pay their debt. When that year of
Jubilee came, they're free. No more. They have that master.
No more. There's no conditions. There's
no, well, you've got to pay part of it back. They're free in the
year of Jubilee. Second, in the year of Jubilee,
all property that was lost in debts was restored. You know,
if you had a debt, but you had some assets, you had some property.
Well, you could give that to the person in exchange for, you
know, the debt, and you didn't have to go into slavery. In the
year of Jubilee, all that property is restored to its original owner.
And that's a picture of Christ, our Jubilee. Everything we lost
in the first Adam is restored in the second Adam. And it's
restored eternally. Third, in the year of Jubilee,
all debts were cancelled. No matter what debt it was, no
matter how you incurred it, it didn't matter. All debts were
cancelled. That's Christ, our Jubilee. Our
sin debt is cancelled because the Lord Jesus Christ paid the
debt in full. Here at work, at the end of this
month, this will be the end of our fiscal year. At the end of
the fiscal year, you've got to true up all the books. In my
job, at the end of that year, I have to report all of our bad
debt. Debt that somebody, for whatever reason, they're not
going to pay it. And we have to report the bad debt. After that, year end, the books
are screwed up. After that, buddy, we look great. We have no bad debt. But in the
back of my mind, not even in the background, I've got a spreadsheet
on my computer that tracks all that bad debt. And I still try
to go after it and get it because it just, oh, I don't like it.
Our sin debt in Christ is not written off to bad debt. It's
not like God the Father says, well, you know, I'll just write
it off to bad debt and ignore it. No, it's not written off
to bad debt. It's paid in full. Christ, our
Jubilee, paid the sin debt of his people in full. And fourth,
in the year of Jubilee, it was a year of rest. Well, you know
that's a picture. That's a picture of our rest
in Christ. And that's good news. That's good tidings. There's
no more working. There's no more attempting to
establish a righteousness that you can't establish. The work
of redemption is finished. Our Lord says it's finished.
The debt's paid. Righteousness is established.
Righteousness is imputed. Just rest. Rest in Christ. And this acceptable year of the
Lord is a day of grace. And today, is still the day of
grace. Today is still the day of salvation. You know how I know that's true?
Here I am preaching to you the gospel of God's grace. It's the
day of grace. Call upon the Lord. Seek Him. Call upon Him. He came to proclaim
the day of salvation. He came to proclaim He is the
way of salvation. He came to proclaim He is the
Redeemer. Then call on Him. Call on him
to have mercy on your soul. He is the Redeemer. There is
no salvation in any other. He is the Redeemer. Fifth, the
Lord Jesus Christ is the Judge. He came to proclaim the day of
vengeance of our God. Scripture tells us the Father
judges no man if he has committed all judgment to the Son. The
Father has given him authority to execute judgment, and the
day is coming. When the Lord Jesus Christ will
judge the quick and the dead, he'll be the judge and he will
be the standard by which we are judged. The question in that
day will be, do you believe Christ? Do you trust him? Do you love
him? Are you found in him? And he that believes not shall
be damned. If you do not believe the gospel
that we preach, you will be damned. That's what God's word says.
I don't say that because I preach it. It's because this is what
God's Word declares is God's way of salvation in the Lord
Jesus Christ. But the main meaning of this
day of vengeance of our God is one day. It's a specific day.
The day that the sins of God's elect were put away. You know
how the year of Jubilee began? It began with the Day of Atonement. That year of rest. That year
of the debt being paid. That year of salvation and the
year that all the captives went free began with a day of blood
and sacrifice for sins. In order for us to have freedom
and salvation, in order for us to have our debts be put away,
vengeance must be taken out upon our sin. And that's exactly what
happened at Calvary. At Calvary, God's vengeance against
the sin of his people was poured out upon his son. God the Father
made all the sins of His people to meet upon His blessed Son,
and God Himself plunged the sword of justice through His Son to
sin or substitute. The Waco sword against my shepherd,
against the man that is my fellow, said the Lord of hosts. The Father
put His Son to death for the sins of His people. Our sin was judged in the Lord
Jesus Christ. We never will be. See, that's
the only way captives can go through. And that's a comfort
to sinners. To weary sinners, this is a comfort.
And that brings me to my sixth point. Who is the Lord Jesus
Christ? He's the Comforter. Look here
in verse 2. To comfort all that mourn, to
appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty
for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness. Now our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Great Preacher, the Great Prophet, He doesn't just offer words of
comfort. Now I can offer you words of comfort. I can tell
you, I can preach to you words of comfort. Our Lord applies
comfort to the heart of His people. He sends God the Holy Spirit
who is the Comforter. And the Holy Spirit comforts
God's people by applying the blood of Christ and showing us
the things of Christ. And the Lord promises He will
comfort all that mourn over sin. He says, I appoint unto them
that mourn in Zion. What's so special about Zion?
What's in Zion? That's where the mercy seat was.
He comforts those that mourn over sin at the throne of grace.
True comfort is found in the sacrifice of Christ for our sin,
found at the mercy seat. And he gives beauty for ashes.
Ashes are a good description. of us. It's what's left over
after a fire's burned out. It's just ashes. Good for nothing.
Ugly. Just want to get rid of it. Those
Jews, when they mourned, they mourned in sackcloth with ashes
piled up on top of their head. The Lord comes, He takes those
ashes away. He crowns us with His righteousness. And He gives the oil of joy for
mourning. He washes off the face. He puts some oil on it for beauty
to make the skin shine, look supple and pretty. A few months
ago, we were at a social gathering with our family. As the evening
wore on, I found myself off alone to the side, just up against
the wall. And almost immediately, my mind
went a million miles away, and there I stood, thinking. My brow all furrowed up. I happened
to look up across the room, and my daughter Holly caught my eye,
and she went. the oil of joy for mourning. The Father puts a pleasant look
on your face because He put a song in your heart. He's put His Son
in your heart. That puts a pleasant look on
the face. And He trades that spirit of heaviness for the garment
of praise. You know what that garment is.
That's His robe of righteousness. As He talks over here in verse
10, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful
in my God, for He has clothed me. for the garment of salvation.
He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness." Now surely,
surely that will make us have an attitude of praise, won't
it? For who He is and what He's done for us and what He's done
in us? Look at this quickly. Seventh, who is the Lord Jesus
Christ? He's the planter of His church,
that they might be called trees of righteousness. Christ plants
His church where He will. Here and there and here and there.
With roots down deep. And He makes them flourish in
the courts of His God. And they will not be uprooted. These trees here are not just
little saplings. The word is oaks. Strong, mighty
oaks that shall not be moved because of who planted them.
Christ plants His people. He's the prophet. He's the great
physician. He's the deliverer. He's the
redeemer. He's the judge. He's the comforter.
He's the planner of His church. Now why? Why did the Father make
all these truths, all this responsibility to rest upon the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, Isaiah tells us at the
end of verse 3 that He might be glorified. The Father does
everything He does to the praise of the glory of His precious
name. And we'll spend eternity praising
that name. And eternity won't be long enough.
Because our sin is infinite. And in His mercy, because He
shed His blood, the Lord Jesus Christ put that sin away. And eternity will be spent with
this sole purpose, praising His name. I can't wait, Earl. I can't wait. And I'd just as
soon start right now, wouldn't you? I'd just as soon. All right, Mike, you come lead
us in song of praise.