That I did you Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Neidert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 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, Words of Grace. I'm reading from Luke chapter
4, verse 22. This is the crowd in Nazareth
after they heard what the Lord had to say about himself from
the scriptures. We read in verse 22, And all
bear him witness and wondered, at the gracious words, literally
words of grace which proceeded out of His mouth. They heard
Him and they heard words of grace. Now, these words of grace did
not receive a favorable reception with Him. They said, is not this
Jesus? Is not this the carpenter's son? We know him, we know his mom
and dad, we know his brothers and sisters. How can he say these
things? And as he went on to speak to
them, we read beginning in verse 28, And all they in the synagogue,
when they had heard these things, were filled with wrath. They
were angry with regard to these words of grace. And they rose
up and thrust him out of the city, and led him under the brow
of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast
him down headlong. This religious crowd turned into
an angry lynch mob, and their intent was to murder the Lord
Jesus Christ. After they heard these words
of grace, but he passing through the way, the midst of them, went
his way." Now what I want to consider is what is My response,
what is your response to these words of grace? In Luke chapter 4, we first read
of Satan attempting to tempt the Lord and cause Him to sin,
and he defeated Satan. Satan failed, because our Lord
is sinless. He's the only righteous man to
ever live in that sense. You and I, all Satan has to do
is tempt us, we'll fall, just like our first parents did. But
he defeated Satan in his temptations, and then he comes in the power
of the Spirit throughout the land of Galilee, preaching and
performing miracles. His public ministry had began. And He was performing miracles
that attested to His divinity and His divine authority. And
people were impressed that He became famous. Everyone was talking
about this Jesus who could perform these miracles. And the Lord
returns to His hometown. Now remember, these people had
seen him grow up. And they'd never seen him perform
any miracles like this. They'd never heard these messages
that he was bringing. They'd seen him for 30 years.
And they saw nothing like this. And here he comes. And you can
imagine, everybody was so excited about seeing him. He grew up
there. A hometown boy made big, coming back home. And they're
excited about hearing what he has to say. So we read verse
16 of Luke chapter 4. 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 or the scroll of the
prophet Isaiah and he unrolled the scroll and he found what
we would call Isaiah chapter 61 now obviously the Bible is
not divided into chapters and verses in that day but he found
the place that we would call Isaiah 61, verses 1 and 2. And he opened the book, he found
the place where it was written, and then he quotes this passage
from Isaiah 61, verses 1 and 2, which is a prophecy regarding
the Messiah. And I can just hear the way he
read this passage of Scripture. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. And you can bet, the way he read
that, everybody knew exactly what he was saying. 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 you can bet
you could have heard a pin drop at this time. 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. I am the fulfillment of this
Scripture. This day is this Scripture fulfilled
in your ears. And all bear him witness. And
wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth,
and they said, is not this Joseph's son? And as you go on reading
in this passage of Scripture, they ended up with a murder attempt
over these words. Now, in this passage of Scripture,
he says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He's anointed me
to do these things. And in this passage of scripture,
he clearly identifies who he came to do this for. Now, the
Lord didn't come to save everybody. Now, understand that. If he came
to save everybody, everybody would be saved. Remember when
the Syrophoenician woman came to him, asking him for mercy,
he said, I'm not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel. I did not come to save everybody. Well, who did he come
to save then? Well, he identifies who he came
to save in this passage of Scripture and how we will view his words,
whether we'll see them as words of grace, good news to us, or
whether we'll be offended by them, like the people in Nazareth
were back then, will be completely dependent on whether or not we
believe we fit this description of the people he came to save. Now, he describes very clearly
who it is he came to save. Six descriptions. First, he came
to save the poor. The poor. beggars, poverty stricken,
with no power to enrich themselves. They have nothing and they have
no way of getting anything. That's who the poor are. They're
bankrupt sinners before God. They have nothing that can commend
them before God. Poor beggars. They can't work
for a living. That's who He came to save, the
poor. Next, He says He came to save
the broken-hearted. The broken-hearted. Now, this is not really a reference
to people whose hearts have been broken romantically. Everybody's
had their heart broken, and it's a very difficult thing. And I
would be compassionate toward anybody in that state, but there
are people who have broken hearts that don't know the Lord. So
it's not talking about that kind of brokenness, or even people
whose hearts have been broken by their children, or people
whose hearts are broken under the troubles and anxieties and
tribulations of life. While I want to be sympathetic
toward those people, this is not really what the Lord's talking
about. He's talking about people whose heart is no good. It's broken. It doesn't work. You've heard of good-hearted
people? Every mother, no matter what her son has done, well,
he has a good heart. In reality, there are no good-hearted
people. There may be people who act outwardly
better in certain circumstances than others, but there are no
good-hearted people. Everybody by nature has an evil
heart. Now, the brokenhearted know their
heart is no good. As the Scripture says, it's desperately
wicked, deceitful above all things. Who can know it? It's no good.
It's broke. It doesn't work. It can't do
what it's supposed to do. That's what a brokenhearted person
is. His heart is his problem. He's got an evil heart of unbelief.
It can't do what it should. And thirdly, he speaks of captives. He came to preach deliverance
to the captives. Now, what is a captive? It's
someone who is in prison and can't get out. Now, if someone
is sitting in a jail cell and the door is unlocked, and if
they decide to, they can open the door and walk out, are they
captive? No. That person is captive who
is in that jail cell and cannot get out. You know this notion
that people have of men having free will. They can just decide
to do this or decide to do that. Now understand, men do what they
want to do. I realize that. You do what you
want to do. When you sin, you sin because
you want to sin. That's the only reason. Men do what they want
to do. But the will is chained to an evil nature. And in that
sense, there's no such thing as a free will. You're captive
to an evil nature and you cannot get out and become free from
that evil nature. You're captive. And then he speaks
of the blind. The blind are they who cannot
see. They cannot see one reason in
themselves. as to why God would look in favor
toward them. When they look at themselves,
they can't find one reason, they can't see one reason why God
would ever want to save them. They see themselves as nothing
but sin. And then we read of those who
are bruised, literally destroyed, crushed, completely unable, disabled,
disabled, unable to do anything spiritual. bruised, crushed by
the fall of their first father, Adam. And that's why they're
bruised. And then when he speaks of the acceptable year of the
Lord, he's talking about the year of Jubilee, when those who
had lost all they had through their own fault and had gone
into debtor's prison, he sets them free. He declares their
debts absolved. These are people who could not
pay the debt. Now, If you're not poor, poor
before God, you have nothing. You have nothing to recommend
you. If you're not that way, if you're not broken hearted,
if your heart can do some good things, if you're not captive,
captive to an evil nature, if you're not blind, you can see
why God would save you. You can see why God would accept
you. If you have some ability, you're not totally disabled.
If you've got some way of paying your debt, these words of our
Lord, these words of grace will irritate you. You'll have the
same response that the men and women of Nazareth had when they
heard our Lord say these things. But if this describes you, these
will be words of grace. And the first thing He says,
the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He hath anointed me. That's where we get the word
Christ from. Christ is the anointed. These
people had only known Him as Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, a mere
man. They did not know He was the
Lord's Christ, the Lord's anointed. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. because he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor." Now, the gospel is the glad tidings,
the good news to the poor. Now, the only way this will be
good news to you is if you're poor. Have you ever heard the
gospel as good news? Well, what would be good news
to someone who had absolutely nothing to recommend them to
God? It would be good news to them
to find out that salvation, acceptance with God, is free. Nothing you have to pay being
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that's
in Christ Jesus. Now, if you have nothing to pay,
That is good news. Oh, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come
buy, and eat, yea, come buy wine and milk and honey without money
and without price. The one requirement is to have
nothing. What if a store advertised where
the only people that are allowed into this store are the people
who have absolutely nothing to pay? These are the people that
can come in and have the products we have in this store. Why, it
would be ransacked, wouldn't it? But when people hear the
gospel, the one requirement is that you have nothing to pay.
People aren't interested in that. But I know who is interested
in it, the poor. to preach the gospel to the poor. You see, when you have nothing
to pay, you find out that salvation, acceptance with God, is absolutely
free. Now, if I told you the gospel
can be had for a dollar's worth of merit, that wouldn't be good
news to a poor person because he couldn't even come up with
that. But it's free. All that God requires, God provides. His salvation is absolutely,
positively, unconditionally free to all who come for it. Now, that's good news to a poor
sinner. Now, somebody says, well, how
can that be? How can God accept someone like that? 2 Corinthians
8 and 9 tells us, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though He were rich, Oh, his rich in righteousness, rich
in praise, rich in communion with God, rich in the favor of
God, though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor. He became utterly forsaken by
God. He became poor in righteousness
when he was made sin. He became poor in communion.
The Father forsook him and would not shine in acceptance upon
Him. He became poor in praise. Everybody cursed Him. Though
He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through
His poverty might be rich. That's the gospel to the poor. And He came to heal the brokenhearted. Now, the brokenhearted Know that
their heart is their biggest problem. An evil heart. A heart that's broken. It doesn't
work. It doesn't do what it should
do. It doesn't love God. It doesn't love its neighbors
itself. It's broken. It can't believe. It should, but it can't. It can't
repent. It can't come to Christ. That's
what a broken heart sees about itself. Our Lord said in John
6, verse 44, No man can come to Me, except the Father which
has sent Me drawing. Now that heart is broken. Now
how does He heal the broken heart? By giving a new heart. You see,
the Lord doesn't take that old heart and make it better. You
know, preachers say, won't you give Jesus your heart? He doesn't
want it. He doesn't want your heart. It's
evil. But He'll give you a new heart. You come to Him and say,
well, David created me a clean heart, oh God. and renew a right
spirit within me. I need a new heart. Not that
my old heart is no good. I need Him to give me a new heart.
And this is what He does. He heals the brokenhearted by
giving them a new heart. A new heart also will I give
thee, He said in Ezekiel 36. A heart that believes. A heart
that loves God. A heart that loves His people. A heart that loves men. A new
heart. He came to heal the brokenhearted. Really, this is what the Bible
calls the new birth. God put something there that
was not there before. A new creation. A new creature
in Christ Jesus. He came to heal the brokenhearted.
And thirdly, it says He came to preach deliverance to the
captives. Now, what's a captive? A captive is someone who's stuck.
They're in a cell, and they cannot get out. The door is locked. They're in the jail cell of an
evil nature, and they lack the ability to get out of that cell. They can't just up and decide,
well, I'm going to, of my free will, get out of this. You can't
do that if you're locked up. You're captive. He came to preach deliverance
to captives. Now, here's the best illustration
I can think of to show what this means. On the same day, the Lord
Jesus was to be crucified. There was another man that was
going to be crucified, laying down in a cell. His name was
Barabbas. He was a wicked man. He was a
murderer. He was a thief. He was an insurrectionist,
a rebel against authority. And he was going to get what
he had coming. He was going to be crucified
as a criminal. And there he lays, knowing it's
going to happen that day, bound in chains. He couldn't get out. He hears the soldiers coming
to open the door, and I'm sure his heart was filled with dread,
knowing he was going to be crucified. And he hears this announcement,
you've been set free. Can you imagine how he must have
felt? You've been set free because Christ was crucified. You've been set free because
He was condemned. You've been set free. Now, this is the Gospel. The
captive is set free because of what Christ did for them. He
bore my punishment. He bore my hell. And I'm set
free. Now, that's good news if you're
a captive. You know, this word deliverance
is also translated forgiveness. It's the same word that's always
translated forgiveness. You find out your sin is what
keeps you from God, and then He announces to you, your sin
is forgiven. It's been put away. You are set free. The Gospel
is the emancipation proclamation. You're set free. And then fourth,
He said, the Spirit of the Lord has anointed Me to give recovery
of sight to the blind. Now, a blind person, cannot see
why God would ever love them. They cannot see why God would
ever save them. They can understand why He'd
send them to hell. They can understand why He'd not show them mercy.
But they can't see why God could ever love them. But then, they're
given sight. They're given eyes to see that
God can love them as they are in the Lord Jesus Christ. They're
given eyes to see that their sin has been put away, that they
no longer have sin, that they have the perfect righteousness
of Christ. And when God sees them, He sees
one who is lovely, lovable, perfect, righteous, accepted in His sight. Oh, they see how God could love
them. I see how God could love me. He loves me as I am in Christ. I'm united to Christ. I have
His righteousness. My sin is put away. I can see
how God loves me because I'm as lovely as the Lord Jesus Christ.
Near, so near to God, near I cannot be. In the person of His dear
Son, I'm as near to God as He. Dear, so dear to God, dearer
I cannot be. In the person of His dear Son,
I'm as dear to God as He. I'm given sight, I'm given light
as to how God can love me and accept me and save me for the
sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says next in verse
18, he came to set at liberty, to set free them that are bruised
or crushed or destroyed. Now, these people have been destroyed.
By a fall, when Adam fell, I fell. When he died, I died. And the law curses me. All the law can do is curse me
because I'm a lawbreaker. I'm sinful. I'm destroyed through
and through. And He comes to set free, set
at liberty that one who has been crushed by answering all the
law's demands for them. You see, the law said, the soul
that sinneth will surely die. My sin became Christ's sin, and
he died in my place. His righteousness becomes mine,
and now I stand before the law of God without guilt. The law
has nothing to say to me. I've been set free from the law. The scripture says to the believer,
you're not under law, but under grace. Now let me tell you what
a wonderful thing it is to be not under law. Law says you're
to love God and if you don't, you'll be punished severely. That's what the law says. What
if someone said to me, You need to love me. You better love me.
And if you don't love me, you'll be punished. I'll make your life
miserable if you don't love me. All kinds of terrible things
are going to happen to you if you don't love me. Could you
love a person like that? No. You couldn't love a person
like that. But if someone says, I can't
love you any more than I do, I can't love you any less than
I do. I've always loved you and I'll
never stop loving you. You love that person, can't you?
You can't love under law, but you can love under grace. He
has delivered us from our inability through him answering the law's
demands for us. And finally, it says he came
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Now, this is the
year of Jubilee. Every 50 years in Israel, if someone had lost
all that they had and was sold into slavery and had debts that
they couldn't pay, they just lost everything and they were
made slaves. Every 50 years, the silver trumpet
of jubilee would sound and all of a sudden, if you were a slave,
you were set free. If you had debts, They were paid, and you were
no longer in debt. What you lost was restored, and
the land was given a year's rest. Can you imagine how those slaves
felt when they heard that silver trumpet of Jubilee? Now, the
people who felt like they were losers by it, they didn't like
it. As a matter of fact, we don't have one instance in the Scripture
where the year of Jubilee was actually practiced. They were
commanded to, but we don't have one instance where ever took
place. But the Lord said, this day is
this scripture fulfilled in your ears. I am the year of Jubilee. And then he closed the book and
he gave it to the minister and sat down and the eyes of all
then 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.
Do you find them gracious words? Now, we have this message on
DVD, CD. If you call the Church Rider
e-mail, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Kniper, praying
that God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. That's
our prayer. Thank you. To request a copy of the sermon
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