The Ministry of Jesus

Luke 4:14-30 - Riley Boggs

There are many reasons why we simply preach through books of the Bible here, instead of jumping around from topic to topic, each week. One of the reasons is that I what to hinder then temptation in my own heart to allow what is happening in the world to dictate what it is that I preach. See the Bible itself says that I am to proclaim the whole counsel of God, that is, I am to preach the entire Word of God. That’s my task. And, if I allow my own desires or current events to guide what I am going to preach, then we’ll find certainly find ourselves not engaging with all of the Bible. The passages that we might deem as difficult and unapplicable might be forgotten and remain unpreached. And that wouldn’t be proclaiming the whole counsel of God, it would be proclaiming parts of the counsel of God.

Another reason that we simply preach through books of the Bible instead of jumping around from topic to topic is because we trust in the sovereignty of God. We trust that if we simply commit to working through the books of the Bible, He will put us where we need to be, when we need to be there. We trust that He knows us, and He knows our needs, far better than we do. And we know that He will use His Word to supply those needs, because He is good. 

Not only that, but there are times where the Lord, because He is kind, makes it obvious why He has us in a certain passage. We’ve seen this a few different times in the short life of our church already. For example, providentially, a few weeks ago we found ourselves in a passage on baptism the same morning that Noah and Maddie were baptized. It shouldn’t be lost on us that it is the Lord who brought us to that passage so that we might think through what baptism is, Biblically, and then be granted the beautiful privilege of seeing it take place that very day. This morning, I think we find ourselves in another one of those situations. Another situation where God has made it rather obvious why He has us in the passage we are in. 

This week, like many of you, my heart has been especially heavy. The evil of this world of have been put on full display, right before us. For those of you who weren’t in Sunday school this morning, we spent our time thinking through the right response to the murder of Charlie Kirk. And because of that, I am not going to spend time working through all that again. However, this text, without a doubt, speaks to our current situation. It gives us the framework to further process all that is happening around us. There have been so many question rattling around in my head this week, and this text has been such a comfort to me. It has helped me think through these things. It has encouraged me and strengthened. I trust that the Lord has brought us to this passage so that it would do the very same thing for you. As we work through the text this morning, I trust that you’ll begin to see why this is the case. I am confident that the Lord has brought us here for this reason.

2 weeks ago we looked at Luke’s record Jesus being baptized and the record of Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness. This week, we are looking at Luke’s record of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. And we know that this is the case because Luke tells us in verse 14 that Jesus returned to Galilee and began to teach in the synagogues. The ministry of Jesus had officially begun. But not only does Luke tell us that His ministry had begun, he brings us in and tells us a story of Jesus doing ministry. He tells us what Jesus said in the synagogue, and he shows us how people responded to what He said.

The way that I want to approach the text this morning is by looking at 3 different aspects of Jesus’ ministry that are revealed to us here in this passage. We’re going to look at how Jesus did ministry, what the message of His ministry was, and what the response to His ministry was. So, let’s start by looking at how Jesus did ministry.

1.) Jesus’ ministry was Spirit-empowered and rooted in the Word of God

Luke starts off, in verse 14, by telling us that Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and he tell us that it was in this spirit-empowered manner than He taught in the synagogues. After telling us that, he focuses in on an example of Him teaching in Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. We read, starting in verse 16, that Jesus went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as He always did. He went the, He stood before the people, He opened the Word of God, and He read out of the book of Isaiah. And then, Luke records exactly what passage He reads out of Isaiah in verses 18-19. After He reads this, He sits down, and He begins to explain the passage that He just read, He began to give understanding to the people. For our second point, we’ll look at the content of what it was He read and work through the point He is making from that passage. For now, I just want you to see the way in which Jesus conducts His ministry. And that is, that Jesus, the Son of the living God, clothed in humanity, approaches ministry by the power of the Spirit and roots it in the Word of God.

You know, this is the difference between successful ministry and unsuccessful ministry. Often times we gauge success only on things like the size of the audience or the length of the ministry. Certainly those both of those can be, God-willing, signs of a successful ministry. But we cannot gauge whether or not a ministry is successful solely on these things. Think of Jesus ministry in these ways. He only did ministry for 3 years before He was crucified. Not only that, but at times His only audience were the 12 disciples whom He faithful taught. Both of these facts remain, and yet we would all certainly say that Jesus ministry was successful. Why? Because Jesus was obedient to His Father to the uttermost. Because He did ministry empowered by the Spirit and rooted in the Word of God. 

This is the line between success and failure for all churches and all ministries. A church, a ministry, that does not rely on the Spirit or does not root itself in the Word of God, no matter how popular, cannot truly be called a success. It just can’t. It might good for some people, it might be helpful for some people, but in the truest sense of the word success, it will not be successful. And again, this isn’t because people won’t come, they probably will. And it isn’t that it won’t last for a long time, it certainly can. The reason that it can’t be rightly called successful is because no efforts, no matter how great of an idea they might be founded, can replicate what Spirit-empowered, Word-rooted ministry will bring about.  

Now let’s be honest with the fact that this text applies a bit differently because the person doing ministry in our story is the Son of God Himself, and we are sinful finite humans. Jesus is the Word in flesh. When He spoke, His Words were the Words of God. And all the works that He did were Spirit-empowered works, because He is the Triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit. But Jesus, in His humanity, relied on the Spirit. We will see this time and time again as He continues to teach, to cast our demons, to heal people, and so on. It will be by the power of the Spirit.

The beauty of this is that there is freedom and joy and peace in doing ministry in this way. We know, with certainty, that the Spirit will empower us to do things that we never thought possible. We know that He will grant us understanding to things we couldn’t understand on our own, that He will give us the words to speak when we don’t know what to say, and that He will give us the confidence to do things that we never thought possible. That is Spirit-empowered ministry. 

And there is also freedom and joy and peace in knowing that the Word of God is sufficient of all faith and life. There isn’t another book out there that we need to supplement the Bible. We don’t have to come up with our own ideas, we simply proclaim what the Bible says. This what how Jesus did ministry, it is what He did, and it is what we ought to do as well. 

The next thing I want to look at is the message of His ministry. What is it that Jesus’ came proclaiming from the Word of God? I think, with a little explanation, we can see exactly what His message is.

2.) Jesus came declaring salvation to people of all nations (the message of His ministry)

When Jesus stands before the people in the synagogue and opens the scroll, He opens to what we now call Isaiah 61. He turns there and He reads this, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” After reading, he rolls up the scroll, hands it back to the attendant, and sits down. And everyone keeps looking at Him. They keep looking at Him, waiting for Him to give understanding to what He just read. Then He speaks, and he says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And when He says this, everyone begins to marvel at what He just said. Why were they marveling? What does Jesus mean by all of this?

Jesus was saying that He was the fulfillment of this prophecy found in Isaiah 61. See Isaiah 61 is a prophecy concerning the kingdom of God. Specifically, about how God has promised that there will be someone who will restore the Kingdom of God from all the effects of the fall. All of the things that sin brought upon the Kingdom of God, He promises, will be reversed by a Spirit-empowered man. And that man will bring restoration, true restoration. He will proclaim good news to the poor, He will liberate those who are held captive, He will heal those who are blind, and He will uplift those who are oppressed. He will bring, as we heard last week, true Jubilee. But it’s not just man who will do this, it’s the God-man, Jesus Christ. And that is what Jesus means when He says, with no uncertainty, that He is the fulfillment of this text. “Today”, he says, “this Scripture has been fulfilled in you hearing.”

In the texts that follow the one that we are in this morning, we will see these very things begin to take place, in the ministry of Jesus. We will read the stories of Him casting out demons cast out and we will see Him heal those who are blind. We will see that the Kingdom of God is at hand, being restored, by Jesus Christ.

But, then, something happens. As everyone was marveling about how glorious this is, that Jesus has come to restore the Kingdom of God, foretold by God through the prophet of Isaiah. They are marveling at this and then someone asks, “Wait… Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” And then more people start to ask the same question. Remember, Jesus is in Nazareth, His hometown. These people likely watched Him grow up, they likely know Mary and Joseph, and they start to doubt what Jesus has just said. They begin to think, “You? You’re the fulfillment of the prophecy? You’re the one who has come to restore the Kingdom of God? You’re the one who is going to liberate and heal and cast out demons? You, the son of Joseph?”

Jesus responds and says this, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself. What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’ Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

What is Jesus saying here? What is He referring to? Jesus is referring to a specific times in Israel’s history, you can find it in 1 Kings 17 and 2 Kings 5, where God showed grace on the Gentiles rather on the Israelites, because of their disobedience. Rather than blessing Israel, because of their unbelief, God blessed the Gentiles. Now, why does Jesus respond in this way? Well, He responds in this way because they are currently responding in unbelief to what Jesus has just said about Himself being the fulfillment of Isaiah 61. And so, He says, the Jewish people may respond in unbelief, but that will not stop the Kingdom of God from coming about, because I have come to seek and save the not only the Jews, but the Gentiles as well. They will also be restored; they will also be blessed.

One my previous pastors commented on this passage wisely and said that it’s hard for us to wrap our mind around how radical this statement was to these people. They had assumed that when the Messiah came, He was going to usher in a political earthly Kingdom, whereby Israel would be restored and made great. They were sure of that. And now, the son of Jospeh, who is claiming to be the Messiah, is telling us that the Gentiles will be a part of the Kingdom of God. That is a very radical statement. 

See the reality is that when Jesus came, He came with an ultimate purpose. That purpose was to die for the sins of people of all nations. Jew and Gentile alike, He came to redeem them from their sin so that they, so that we, might inherit the Kingdom of God. That is what we are seeing here in Jesus’ message, and it is the message that we also proclaim to the world. We do not proclaim a Kingdom of God, an eternal glory with God, that can only be inherited by a certain people group. We do not proclaim a Gospel that is relevant to a select few. We proclaim that Christ came and died for all those who would turn from their sins and place their faith in Him. We proclaim the very thing that Jesus Himself in proclaiming here in this passage, that He has come to bring salvation to people of all nations.

Isn’t that wonderful news? Isn’t that the greatest news that has ever been told? Shouldn’t that be cause for rejoicing, for thanksgiving, for worship? It is. But that isn’t how they respond here in this passage. Instead, they respond in anger. That is the final point for us this morning, the response to Jesus’ ministry.

3.) Jesus was received by some and despised by others

Jesus tells them that He has come to bring salvation to all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, and they respond like this. Starting in verse 28, “When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.” They become angry. They become violent. They not only hate what He is saying, they hate Him, and they want Him to die.

Yes, He is calling them out for their unbelief, but that does not negate that He has just proclaimed wonderful news, news that ought to cause them to rejoice. But they don’t, instead they are filled with wrath. Anger is their response to hearing that Jesus has come to bring salvation to people of all nation. Violence is their response to hearing that those who are not Jewish are going to inherit the Kingdom of God. That their sins can be forgiven, that their wounds will be healed, that they will be restores. Their response is a hate-filled desire for Jesus to die. 

As we work through the Gospel of Luke, this will be a continual trend. There will be some who receive Jesus with thanksgiving and there will be some who despise Him above everything else. His ministry is marked by these 2 responses. And, today, the same thing is true. As we go out and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to the world, we can expect to be met with these same kind of responses. There will be some who hear that they must turn from their sin and trust Christ, who respond with joyful repentance. Their hearts will be glad, and they will begin to follow Jesus, the who saved them from their sin, who made them alive in Christ. There will be some who respond in apathy. They will say they don’t care. They will tune you out and say that religion isn’t for them. 

But, there will also be some, who respond with violent hatred. Why? Because they hate God, they hate Christ, they hate His message, and because you identify with Christ, they hate you too. And this isn’t because you shared your faith wrong, nor is it because you held the line of true Christian values too tightly. No, that’s not it. They will respond like this because they hate Christ! In the Gospel of John, Jesus Himself says, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” In other words, the world will hate you for no other reason than because you have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and because you stand on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I think you probably see why I think this text is fitting for our time and place right now. I have, like many of you probably, have seen people rejoicing about the murder of Charlie Kirk. And I don’t just mean people in the general sense. No, people I know have publicly and proudly justified his murder. People I went to school with, who I know rather well, hated the things that he said so much so that they find joy in his murder. And when I saw this, I kept asking how can they do this? How can they proudly do this? Even if you disagreed with every word he spoke, how does your heart not break at the thought of a wife losing her husband and 2 children losing their father?

The answer is that we live in an incredibly broken world. A world full of people that so desire the evil things in their heart, that they can justify despicable acts of violence. We’ve seen it on full display, maybe more than ever before. I don’t even want to qualify this, but I will. Charlie Kirk was not a perfect man, no one is saying that. But he was an image bearer of God who proclaimed Christ, and for that he was despised. But he isn’t the first, nor will be the last. This wrathful violence has always existed and it will always exist. And specifically, it will exist and be aimed at those who follow Christ. It will be aimed at Christ; it will be aimed at those who proclaim Him. We see that in our text and our world this very morning.

So, how ought we to respond? Not just to the specific situation we find ourselves in, but to this passage. Jesus begins His ministry, empowered by the Spirit of God and rooted in the Word of God. He tells of the coming salvation to people from all nations and in response they seek to kill Him. How should we respond? We look to Christ and proclaim the Gospel all the more. 

In verse 30 we read that as they were trying to throw Jesus off of the cliff to kill Him, He miraculously passed through their midst, and evaded their murderous hands. But He didn’t do this so that He might never die on this Earth. No, He came for the specific purpose of dying in the way that the Father intended. What is the way that the Father intended? It is the way that it happened. Jesus was betrayed by Judas, was condemned for things He had not done, was beaten and flogged, made to carry His own cross, and then crucified on it to be killed. Even more than that, the Father intended Him to be crucified on the cross, so that He might bear the sins and wrath of God. But for who? Whose sins did He bear? Who did He bear the wrath of God for? For His enemies. Not those who love Jesus beforehand, but those who hated Him. For those who killed Him.

Our response to this text must be a fearless proclamation of those Gospel of Jesus Christ. A Gospel that says Jesus saved us while we were His enemies. A Gospel that says that Jesus not only died, but He rose again, defeated death, and has granted us eternal life in Him. And that this beautiful reality will be true of all those who repent of their sins and place their faith in Christ, from all nations. We proclaim this with boldness! We will be hated for it, nevertheless, we proclaim it. Even to those who hate us, even to our so-called enemies. 

Paul, so beautiful lays this reality out in 2 Corinthians 2:14-17. He says, “14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?17 For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”  As commissioned by God, we speak Christ. Let that be us. Amen.