The Ministry of Christ 02—Luke 4:16-30—Mission

June 11, 2023 Nate Holdridge

16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

22 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23 And he said to them, “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.’ ” 24 And he said, “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.” 28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. 29 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. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away. (Luke 4:16–30, ESV)

Cover design is an important part of releasing a music album because it gives the listener a feeling of anticipation. What we see gives us an impression, a sense of what we might hear or feel if we click play. You will never look at a Johnny Cash album cover and think you're in for some reggae. You will never look at a New York Philharmonic album and think you're in for some pop. And you will never look at a Taylor Swift album cover and think you're in for some West Coast Rap—OK, maybe Reputation, but none of her others.

But by looking at the cover you get an idea of what you're in for if you click play.

At this point in his gospel account, Luke is ready to introduce the cover art to Jesus' ministry. He has already fastidiously recounted the events leading up to this moment, all the way from John the Baptist's birth to the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. And now Jesus is ready to go to work, so Luke recorded the cover art to Christ's album in this text. If you hit play on the rest of Jesus' life, what will you find? It's all right here in this passage. It's a cover that tells you a lot about what is coming.

And the cover Luke chose was an episode when Jesus declared his mission. It not only colored his life before the cross, but also what the church is meant to do today. In other words, his mission is our mission, so it's important to understand it correctly. So, for this study, we will ask three questions. What was Jesus' mission? How did he carry out his mission? And what should we do about it?

The Backdrop

The episode unfolded naturally after Jesus' defeat of the devil's wilderness temptations. He came out of that brutal test with the Spirit's power and taught all throughout the region of Galilee. He went from synagogue to synagogue, declaring God's kingdom and displaying its power, before finally arriving in his hometown of Nazareth, a small village on a rocky hillside pass, population: less than 500.

When the Sabbath day came, Jesus continued his custom of going to church every week (16). If there was ever a guy who could've excused himself from the gathering because it was full of hypocrites, it was Jesus, but he was there. And because he was, they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah—the twenty-third book of our Old Testament—and he found the place he wanted and began to read. It was a passage addressed to the people of Israel when they were banished from the promised land and into captivity (Is. 61:1-4). God promised a messianic figure was coming who would rescue them.

After reading the passage, Jesus sat down like teachers from that day did and began his teaching on the text by saying, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (21). It was a clear and authoritative claim that he was the Messiah, the deliverer, the one who would usher in a new age of rescue and redemption that the Old Testament had predicted. He was the long-awaited Savior—and he was ready to go to work.

What Is His Mission? (18-19)

So let's begin with our first question: What is his mission? First, it is clear from this passage that Jesus' mission was to produce the gospel. Near the end of his Isaiah quotation, he dipped back into Isaiah 58 and said that he'd come to set at liberty those who are oppressed (18). Jesus was going to do something that set people free from some type of oppression. Prophets do not set free; deliverers do, which means Jesus had more in common with Moses than with Isaiah. Isaiah could promise deliverance. But Moses brought deliverance. And that's what Jesus did—he produced the gospel message through his death and resurrection.

But along with producing the gospel, it is clear from this passage that Jesus came to proclaim the gospel to the oppressed, hurting, and marginalized. We celebrate Jesus because he became all of these things for us. He experienced poverty. He could not see the glory of his Father while on earth. He lived during a time of Roman oppression. He even, as a baby, had to flee to Egypt as a refugee; I spoke recently with a Ukrainian refugee who rejoiced when she realized that Jesus had also fled from his home country because of danger caused by Herod and could identify with the experience of her people.

But who are the poor, captive, blind, and oppressed people Jesus came to rescue? And who oppressed them? Did Jesus come only to help people in physical slavery, poverty, or distress? Did he come to rescue people from spiritual versions of all those? Or did he come to rescue from both?

In the original Isaiah passage Jesus read from, the oppressed, poor, blind captives Isaiah alluded to were banished Israelites. And why had they been carried off into captivity? Because of a longstanding and persistent sin against God. After centuries of disobedience, they were disciplined by being carried off into Babylon, God's people absorbed into the world system. So the deliverer Isaiah had in mind was going to reach people who were poor, captive, blind, and oppressed because of deep-seated, historical, generational, ongoing sin. The figure he had in mind was going to break them out of their sad condition by dealing with their sad sin and brokenness, breaking them out of Babylon (the world).

So Isaiah looked forward to someone who would free people held captive because of sin, and the rest of Jesus' story demonstrates that the main oppressor he set people free from is sin. All the gospel accounts—not to mention the book of Acts and all the New Testament epistles—point to the cross as the grand masterpiece of his work. Jesus' ministry cannot be reduced to the miracles he wrought, the good things he did, or the words he said all throughout Israel in the years leading up to his death. They were all a precursor to the great crescendo of his death, burial, and resurrection—the climactic events upon which our liberty from sin and death has been won. So the main oppressor Jesus came to deal with was sin.

Though Jesus saw sin as the main oppressor, it should not escape us how he went about applying his tactics. Even though he was trying to set people free from spiritual and unseen poverty, captivity, blindness, and oppression, he certainly ran straight to the natural and seen versions of each. He cleansed lepers. He reached out to tax collectors. He restored prostitutes. He fed the masses. He delivered demoniacs. He blessed children. You could say that Jesus ran straight toward the underdogs of the world system—many of whom were underdogs because of the underlying and insidious impact of sin, which he came to eradicate.

For this reason, you would expect an outflow of gospel ministry to look something like what William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela did. You would expect to find Jesus' people proclaiming the gospel to the spiritually poor, captive, blind, and oppressed of this world, but also living out the gospel by helping the materially poor, imprisoned, sick, and refugees of our world. None of this work in the physical realm can ever replace, displace, or even erase the gospel message, nor are they evidences of a "woke" Christianity, but are a compliment to the truth of Jesus' work on the cross.

So Jesus' mission is to, through the cross, produce the gospel and then proclaim it. He was sent to proclaim good news, to proclaim liberty, to proclaim recovering of sight to the blind, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor (18-19).

I once read a story about a large and prestigious British church from a bygone century. Their ministry oversaw a handful of mission/outreach churches in hard parts of town. But each year, all the outreach churches would gather with the main church for a communion service. At one of those services, a former thief took communion next to the Supreme Court judge that had sent him to prison many years earlier. After his release, he became a believer and served in one of the outreach churches.

After the service, the judge walked with the pastor and asked if he'd seen who stood next to him during communion. The pastor had, and he agreed when the judge said it was an amazing miracle of grace. But the judge stopped and asked, "But to whom do you refer?" When the pastor said he meant the convict, the judge said he was talking about himself. He went on to explain that his upbringing, wealth, education, and church had all conspired in the past to convince him he was a good and moral man in need of nothing. But eventually, he saw that he was a sinner in need of grace. He realized he was poor, blind, and naked, so his heart was opened to receive the grace of God—and that was the miracle.

That story pictures Jesus' mission well. The gospel message leads us to start outreaches into pockets of societal pain, but not before it rocks us internally because, without Christ, we are all spiritually impoverished before God. Without him, we are all held down captive to sin. Without him, we are all spiritually blind. And without him, we are all oppressed by the pervasive and deleterious effects of sin. So Jesus came to produce and then proclaim the good news that there is a way of escape by his blood!

How Does He Carry Out His Mission? (18-19, 21)

On to our next question: How does Jesus carry out his mission? Jesus' text from Isaiah makes it clear: by God's Spirit and God's grace. The beginning line of Jesus' text said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me (18). Everything he did was led and energized by the Spirit. When the Spirit came upon him at his baptism, led him into the wilderness for temptation, and empowered him to preach throughout Galilee, it was evident that he was the Anointed One the prophets predicted would come (18).

So Jesus would conduct his ministry by the power of the Spirit, but also by God's grace. The closing line of Jesus' text said he was sent "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (19). Even without knowing the background of that line, we sense it is good news. The Lord's favor!

But its goodness is elevated when we consider two elements. First, it sounds so much like Israel's year of Jubilee—every fifty years, mortgages were reset, property was returned to the original families, indentured servants were set free, and the poor were redeemed (Lev. 25).

Second, we should consider what Isaiah had written next: "and the day of vengeance of our God" (Is. 61:2). Jesus stopped his reading right before that line because his first coming introduced an age of grace, but his second coming with be one of judgment. But right now, we are on a pause, living in the age of the Spirit and grace.

The clock on our family microwave usually doesn't have the time showing. The beep is so loud and long and uncancellable that we all open the door with one or two seconds to go just so we can avoid it. So it often shows :01 or :02 on its screen. But if someone closed the door and hit start, it would continue the countdown and commence the beeping. It's like Jesus opened the microwave door right before the beep; he stopped reading the passage right before the vengeance. It will come, but it's on pause right now because this is the age of the Spirit and grace.

And it is by the power of the Spirit and in the age of grace that Jesus gets his work done right now. One day he will rule with a rod of iron, but right now, he will not break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering wick (Is. 42:3, Mat. 12:20). And as Jesus' people, we must keep this in mind. Though we are called to proclaim Christ with our words and our character, the Spirit is the one who must open people up to him. And though we will become frustrated with our world at times, perhaps even wishing the days of vengeance would come, we must remember we are in the year of the Lord's grace. When Jesus said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing," he meant that a new day had come—and we are currently still in it (21)!

In the Old Testament, the prophet Zechariah was sent to encourage the governor of Jerusalem. He was discouraged by the enormity of the project in front of him—he was tasked with rebuilding the temple after many years of exile. But the prophet told him that the great mountain in front of him would become a plain. The work would happen not by human might and power but by the Spirit's, and one day the top stone would be set in place while they all shouted with joy about God's grace (Zech. 4:1-7). And how will we live out the miracle of God raising many spiritually dead back to life? The same way as Zechariah said—by the Spirit and by grace.

What Should We Do? (22-30)

Our last question today is applicational: What should we do? If Jesus' mission is to produce and proclaim the gospel to the world, and if his method is to do it by the Spirit and grace, how should we respond?

Jesus gave part of the answer in this episode in Luke. Immediately after his message, everyone in Nazareth spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth (22). They had heard of what he'd done all throughout the Galilee, and now they saw a glimpse of his spiritual power in that synagogue, but they remembered him as the town carpenter's son, so they were blown away by what he'd become (22).

But Jesus knew their awe would not last forever because no prophet is acceptable in his hometown (24). So Jesus told them they would one day quote a popular saying from their day to him—"Physician, heal yourself"—as a way to get him to do his miracles in his hometown as well (23).

Knowing Nazareth was going to reject him, Jesus reminded them of the Old Testament stories of the prophets Elijah and Elisha (25-27). Both of them lived in Israel during a time when there were many poor and oppressed people. But both of them went beyond Israel's borders. Elijah served a poor widow from Sidon and Elisha served a powerful general from Syria.

Was it physical poverty that set them apart from all the Israelites Elijah and Elisha knew back home? No. There were plenty of poor widows in Israel, and Naaman, the general, wasn't poor (or captive, oppressed, or blind) in the literal sense. But both of them sensed a need to humble themselves before the living God. When the sin of pride was broken, God rushed in to deliver them. And Jesus is after the same here.

He wants us to humbly accept him. If we recognize our spiritual poverty, we are the target of his mission, the underdogs whom he loves. But if we are not poor in spirit and instead appraise ourselves as in no need of God's grace and mercy, we will find ourselves outside his kingdom. He is looking for us to recognize the spiritual poverty, captivity, blindness, and oppression we are under without him.

And then he wants us to join him. He wants us to press play—to consider him in the gospels, the epistles, and the Old and New Testaments over and over again. He wants us to receive his commissioning into all the world to make disciples. He wants us to recognize that our power is not in our heritage or customs or spiritual leaders but in his gospel. We have the atomic power of the gospel. Jesus made it, and now he proclaims it—through us. We have everything we need to change the world; the same age-old gospel that changed the first-century world is the gospel that can change ours as well.