Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nibert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Todd Nibert. I've entitled this morning's
message, When Jesus Bypassed Nazareth. Now remember, Nazareth
is the town he grew up in and lived 30 years. When Jesus bypassed Nazareth. Now Nazareth was in Galilee. a region that had a number of
cities. And we read in verse 43 of John
chapter 4, now after two days he departed thence and went into
Galilee. Now that's the region that Nazareth
was in. Capernaum was there, Canaan was
there. Magdala was there, there were
some major towns there, and the Lord grew up in Galilee in the
town of Nazareth, but he left Samaria after two days of preaching
and departed thence and went into Galilee." And then he makes
this unusual statement, for Jesus himself testified that a prophet
hath no honor in his own country. and he's speaking of Nazareth
and something that had taken place in Nazareth. This is still
early in his ministry, in the first year of his public ministry,
and he's talking about something that took place in Nazareth before
that. As a matter of fact, this is
what he said by the townspeople of Nazareth's response to his
preaching. He said, what he said here, no
prophet. has any honor in his own country. And that's brought back up to
us again by John. Then when he was coming to Galilee,
the Galileans of Cana and Capernaum received him, having seen all
the things that he did at Jerusalem at the feast, for they also went
to the feast. So Jesus came again unto Cana
of Galilee. where he made water wine. Now, evidently, he bypassed Nazareth. Why? We don't read where he ever
went to Nazareth again, the place that he had lived for 30 years.
Why did he bypass Nazareth, his hometown? at this time and go
to other cities? Well, the answer to that is found
in Luke chapter 4, and this is our Lord's first public sermon
in Nazareth. Now, in Luke chapter 4, The first
part of the chapter deals with the temptation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. When he fasted 40 days, went
into the wilderness, and there the devil tempted him. If you're
the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. If
you're the son of God, prove it. Jump off the temple. The
scripture says, shall not he give his angels charge over thee,
lest thou dash thy foot against a stone? Prove it. If you're
the Son of God, bow down and worship me, and I'll give you
all these kingdoms. Now this was Satan seeking to
tempt the Lord Jesus Christ to sin. Now there's a reason why
he didn't give in to the temptation to sin. He could not sin. He's God the Son. Can God sin? No. God cannot lie. He cannot act contrary to any
of his attributes. God the Son could not sin. He said with regard to Satan,
Satan hath come and I found nothing in me, nothing he could work
with. The Lord perfectly kept God's
law and he never sinned. And then we read in Luke chapter
four, verse 14, and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into
Galilee. And there went out a fame of
Him throughout all the region, round about all the different
cities of Galilee, hearing of the fame of the Lord Jesus Christ,
His ability to heal, His miracles. And He taught in their synagogues,
being glorified of all. And He came to Nazareth. Now
think about this. He's a native of Nazareth. This
is a native son. And the people of Nazareth have
heard of the fame of the Lord Jesus Christ. They knew him.
They watched him grow up, the carpenter's son. And I have no
doubt that they were excited when he comes back home and they
want to hear what he has to say. So we read, 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. And he quotes a passage from
Isaiah chapter, what we know is chapter 61, verses one and
two. Now, when the Lord opened the
scroll, there were not chapters and verses at that time, but
he knew exactly where to go because he wrote it. He was completely
familiar with the gospel of Isaiah. And he opened up to Isaiah chapter
61, verses one and two, and he reads, 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 when the people
had heard him read, they knew exactly what he meant the way
he read it. Oh, wouldn't you have loved to
hear, heard the Lord read the scriptures? Well, they heard.
And the scripture goes on to say, and the eyes of all them
that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. You could have
heard a pin drop at this time. And he began to say unto them
this day, right now. Is this scripture fulfilled in
your ears? I am the fulfillment of what
has just been read. And it's fulfilled this day in
me reading it. 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? And he said unto them, you
will surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Now he knew what they were thinking.
They were thinking, if you are who you say you are, if you have
the ability to do what you say you can do, do it in front of
us. Show us your miracles. You did them in Capernaum, you
did it in Canaan. Show us, give us some proof that
you are who you say you are. And then he says in verse 24,
he said, Verily I say unto you, no profit, no profit. is accepted in his own country. And that's exactly what he said
in John chapter four. That's why he bypassed Nazareth.
We're gonna get into a minute to more of what happened, but
he bypassed Nazareth because of their response to what he
had to say. Now, in these two verses of scripture
that he read that they were so incredulous about, Who is this? This is the carpenter. What's
he doing reading a passage of scripture like this and saying,
I am the fulfillment of this. They did not like this. The wonder
spoken of when they wondered his gracious words wasn't the
wonder of admiration. It was the wonder of being incredulous.
We don't believe you. We know who you are. We saw you
grow up. We know your mom and dad. You
know, the Lord never sinned. 30 years in Nazareth, never sinned,
and nobody understood. They didn't get it. They couldn't
believe he was making these claims concerning himself. When they
heard his gracious words, that's not talking about the gracious
way in which he spoke. It's not an adjective, it's a
noun, grace words. When they heard the grace words. If you want to know what the
grace of God is, listen to these words which he spoke. Now in
verses 18 and 19, where he begins with the spear of the Lord is
upon me, and he ends with to preach the acceptable year of
the Lord, we're given a six fold description of who Jesus Christ
came to save. Now let me tell you what comes
into my mind when I think about that. Do I fit this description? Am I somebody that Jesus Christ
came to save? Now somebody may be thinking,
are you implying that he didn't come to save everybody. When
you say, who did Jesus Christ come to save? No, I'm not implying
it. I'm stating it a matter of factly. I don't mean harshly, but he
said, I pray not for the world, but for them which you've given
me. He said, I lay down my life for the sheep. He said, I've
not come, but for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He never
intended to save everybody. Now understand that. If He intended
to save everybody, everybody would be saved. You see, He's
incapable of failure. He can't pay for somebody's sins,
and they wind up in hell anyway. He's incapable of failure. He's
the Son of God. You see, the issue is who died.
If you can know and understand who died, you'll understand that
whatever he does must be successful. It's impossible for him to intend
for something to take place and it not take place. Whatsoever
the Lord pleased, that did he in earth and sea and all deep
places. It's impossible for his will
to be thwarted. Whatever he intended to do, that
is what he did. When he said it is finished,
it was finished. All of his intentions were realized. His people were saved from their
sins. Now, am I one of the people he
came to save? Well, do I fit the description
of who he describes of the people that he came to save? Now, listen
to these verses very carefully. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel. To who? To the poor. Now, the Lord was
a preacher. He preached the gospel. And there was one audience that
viewed what he was saying as good news indeed, the poor. Now he's not talking about poor
in purse. When he said, blessed are the
poor in spirit, who is this poor person? This poor person is someone
who has nothing to recommend themselves to God. They are destitute
of personal righteousness. And if there's anything they
must first do before they can be saved that would enable God
to do something for them, they will not be saved because they
don't have it. They're poor. They're destitute of merit. They're bankrupt sinners. Poor. Now this is the person
who will hear the gospel as the gospel. Now, in the declaration
that God makes sinners righteous, and that's what he does in the
gospel, who is happy to hear about that? Sinners. If you have
any personal righteousness, you can't hear of the righteousness
that Christ worked out and being the only righteousness of God.
But if you're poor, It comes as good news to you. To be poor is to be without anything
to recommend me to God. That's who he preaches the gospel
to. And the next description he gives is the broken hearted.
He has sent me to heal the broken hearted. Now I dare say that
everybody listening has had their heart broken at some time. Maybe through a severe breakup
with a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a divorce. What a terrible
thing to go through. What a difficult thing. What
a heart, gut-wrenching thing to go through is a divorce. I've
heard it's one of the worst things anybody goes through. A wayward
child can break your heart. The direction they go and your
heart's broken over the way they're conducting themselves. Well,
I want to be very sympathetic toward those kinds of broken
hearts, but that's not what the Lord is talking about. He's talking
about a broken heart in the sense of a heart that doesn't work.
It's broken. It's broken. It can't do what
it's supposed to do. It's broken. It's no good. Jeremiah
said in Jeremiah chapter 17 verse nine, the heart, the heart. This is a description of my heart
and your heart. That's the understanding, that's the will, that's the affections. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? You can't even
know. I can't even know the depths
of the wickedness of my own heart. I've heard people say, trust
your heart, follow your heart, you better not. He that trusts
his heart is a fool, the wise man said. Now, this thing of
being desperately wicked, that word is generally translated
incurable. The heart is deceitful above
all things, incurable. It can't be made better. And
then the third description is he came to preach deliverance
to the captives. Now what does that mean, a captive? Now if you have a free will,
you're not a captive. You can will to do whatever you
want to do. Problem is, there's no such thing as free will. People
talk, preachers talk about free will. There's no such thing.
Your will's controlled by your nature. And if you have a sinful
nature, you're held captive to that sinful nature and you cannot
set yourself free. You are in bondage to sin. The Lord said, whosoever committeth
sin is the slave of sin. If you commit sin, you're a slave
of sin. Somebody says, no, I'm not. Well,
let's see you never sin again. If you do, that proves you're
really the slave of sin. Every believer is a captive. Every man that God has taught
the gospel to, they realize they're a captive to sin, a prisoner
of sin. You're in sin and you can't get
out. You can't pull yourself up by
the bootstraps. Now here's the fourth description. You're blind. He came to give
recovering of sight to the blind. He healed physically blind men,
but this is a special reference to those who cannot see why God
would ever save them. They cannot see why God would
ever look in favor toward them. They're blind, like blind Bartimaeus. They're blind, plumb, blind. They can't find one reason in
themselves why God would ever look in favor on them. They don't
charge God with injustice. There, can't see why he would
save him. They're like Peter when he saw
who the Lord was, depart from me, Lord, I'm a sinful man. You
don't wanna have anything to do with me. And then it says,
he came to set at liberty them that are bruised. And the word
bruised is generally translated oppressed, oppressed by sin,
oppressed by Satan. He came to set at liberty them
that are bruised and he came to preach the acceptable year
of the Lord. Now that's talking about the
year of Jubilee. Every 50 years in the land of Israel, a silver
trumpet would announce the year of Jubilee. Now in the year of
Jubilee, if you had, through inability to pay off your debts,
you lost your goods and you were made a slave, in the year of
Jubilee, your debts were canceled. If you were a slave, you were
set free. Everything you lost was restored. And you were given a year's vacation. The land was given a year's rest. The year of jubilee. Now, does that speak of you? Poor? Broken hearted? Captive? Blind? Oppressed? A slave who cannot pay his debts. Somebody says, no, that's not
me. Well, I'm not talking to you then. Somebody says, yes,
that's me. This message is for you. He came to save you. Now, think about what the Lord
says. He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Here's a message to the poor. God's made you rich through what
his son did. You now have a righteousness
that he can accept because he gave it to every poor sinner
who has none of their own. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
those who are incurably bad. He does this by giving them a
new heart. The same heart David cried for
when he said, creating me a clean heart. I don't need my heart
healed. It's no good. I need a heart transplant. And
he gives a new heart. He sent me to declare deliverance
to the captives. What I thought of was Barabbas.
He's laying in the prison cell, scared to death knowing that
day he's going to be crucified. He hears the prison guards come
in and open the door. I'm sure he's filled with a sense
of dread. And he hears these words, you've
been set free. A man named Jesus of Nazareth
took your place, substitution, and Barabbas walked out of that
cell a free man. He couldn't get the door open,
but when the Lord took his place, he was freed. There might be
somebody who says, I can't see why God could save me, or how
he could save me, or why he would save me. Well, listen to this.
He does it for Christ's sake. He doesn't need another reason.
Be kind, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for
Christ's sake, has forgiven you. He was delivered for our offenses,
raised again for our justification. He saves for Christ's sake. He
doesn't need to find a reason in you. He does it for Christ's
sake. He came to set at liberty them
that are bruised, them that are oppressed. They're oppressed
by sin. And this word set at liberty is the word generally
translated forgiven. Now listen to this. Salvation
begins with forgiveness. It doesn't end with forgiveness.
If you fill in the blank, if you do this, you do that, quit
doing this and start doing that and avoid that, then God will
forgive you. That's salvation by works. That's
all that is. Salvation begins with the full, complete forgiveness
of sins. And he is the fulfillment of
the year of jubilee. When he said it is finished,
my debts were canceled. I was no longer a slave. I was
given that which I've lost. I'm unable to rest. He is the
fulfillment of Jubilee. Now I think it's interesting
you don't find one record of Jubilee ever being observed in
the Old Testament. And I understand why. If I was
a landowner and people owed me money, I wouldn't want the year
of Jubilee to take place because I'd feel like I'd lose out of
it. But I know who would rejoice in the year of Jubilee. The ones
who were set free from it. Now the Lord closed the book. He gave it to the minister and
the eyes of all of 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. 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 his mom, we know
his dad, we know his brothers and sisters. This is Joseph,
this is the carpenter. Where's he think he can get off
speaking like this, like he's the Messiah? And he said unto
them, you will surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal
thyself. Whatsoever we've heard done in
Capernaum, do also here in thy country, give us some proof.
And that's when he said what John quoted in John chapter four.
He said, verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his
own country. Now let's go on reading the rest
of this passage of scripture. He didn't stop there. He said,
but I tell you the 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.
You think of these suffering widows in Israel. But unto none
of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon. This was a Gentile woman, not
a Jewish woman, unto a woman that was a widow. You had all
these widows in Israel, and God passed them by and saved a Gentile
widow. And there were many lepers in
Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them
was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. God passed them by. Now here's what the Lord is saying.
You don't believe me? God has passed you by. Now the issue here is divine
election. God saves whom he will. It's in the Bible. The children
being not yet born, either having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God, according to election, might stand, not of
works, but of him that calleth. It was said unto her, the elder
shall serve the younger, as it's written, Jacob have I loved,
Esau have I hated. That's God speaking. Now what
were the people's response to hearing of divine election? You see, they were hoping that
they would be saved because they were Jews. And they find out
that what they were hoping in isn't any good, that God saves
whom he will. What was their response? And
all they in the synagogue? when they heard these things
were filled with wrath. They were angry. They said, this
is not fair. We won't have this. And they
rose up and they thrust him out of the city and led him under
the brow of the hill where on their city was built that they
might cast him down headlong. They were gonna murder the son
of God. These temple goers turned into
a lynch mob when they heard this preaching. But he, passing through
the midst of them, went his way. Now, I don't know how that happened.
I don't know whether all of a sudden he just caused them to be blinded
and walked away from them. But he passing through their
midst went his way because his time had not yet come, his time
to die. Not yet come, this is actually early in his ministry.
But remember this, these same people that wanted to kill him,
that rejected his claims of being the Messiah, when he came back
through Galilee, he bypassed Nazareth. Here's my response
if I'm in Nazareth. Lord, don't pass me by. Don't pass me by. I hope that
is your prayer. Don't pass me by. To receive
a copy of the sermon you have just heard, send your request
to todd.neibert at gmail.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen. Mm-hmm