Luke 4.16-22 Jesus’ First Sermon
Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 4, this morning we are going to look at verses 16-22, and that’s on page 859 in the pew Bibles.
As I said last week Luke jumps over almost all the events of the first four chapters of the Gospel of John, but here in our text for this morning he records Jesus’ first sermon, in fact, His only sermon in His hometown of Nazareth.
There is a lot for us to learn from Jesus’ first sermon about who he is and what He was sent to do as well as how He continues to do it and what we should do about it. So let’s look at the text and then we’ll ask the Lord to guide us in it.
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,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim 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, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.
Let’s pray
So just like last week, there are some quick hit facts and some things for us to learn from Jesus right on the surface of this text.
Not the least of which is found right there in verse 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…”
Why did Jesus go to the synagogue on the Sabbath? Because it was His custom. He wasn’t compelled to go, He wasn’t driven there by the Holy Spirit or anything, He went to church because that’s just what He did. Alistair Begg called it, “a fixed point in His Life.” Going to Synagogue was part of His regular routine all of His life and there is something to be learned from His example of regularly gathering with the people of God for corporate, family worship. Watching online is great if you don’t have any other option, that’s why we are still live streaming, but it’s no replacement for gathering with God’s people for worship and teaching, fellowship and prayer. It’s God’s design for us and it’s the example given by Jesus for us to follow. We can’t call ourselves followers of Jesus if we don’t do the things that He did.
The second idea just on the surface was the makeup of Jesus’ sermon. I can see four things.
It was grounded in the Word of God, the Scriptures; it was applicable to its hearers; it was short; and it nearly got Jesus thrown off a cliff.
There’s a lot to learn about the work of preaching right there!
In truth, the scholars believe that Jesus actually said a lot more but Luke only recorded this brief introduction, either way, we got what we needed. Secondly, Jesus’ sermon demanded a response, some people marveled at His gracious words and others wanted to kill Him as we’ll see later on in this chapter.
That’s what good preaching should always do, it should demand a response, it should have an effect whether people are encouraged, convicted or offended. The worst thing a sermon can do is to leave people confused or indifferent… I’m still working on that…
Well, let’s look at the content of Jesus’ brief sermon.
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,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim 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, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus was handed the scroll of Isaiah the prophet and read from Isaiah 61:1-2, but what Isaiah wrote as prophecy, Jesus read as history. Isaiah said it would happen, Jesus said it is happening. Isaiah was describing the person and work of Messiah and Jesus, in His sermon said, I am He, I am Messiah. “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
We often get stuck on Jesus’ work on the cross when he paid the price for our redemption, for our forgiveness with His own life. It’s the most important event in history, but that wasn’t His only work.
What was it that Isaiah said was the work of Messiah? To proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
In Greek the word to proclaim good news is where we get the English word: evangelize. But who was it that Jesus was to evangelize? The poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed. And who was that exactly? The short answer is: everybody.
JP Lange called them, “the whole suffering mass of mankind.”
Martin Luther wrote, “Christ finds all those to whom He comes blind, without the knowledge of God, bound of Satan, and kept prisoners under death, sin, and the Law. For out of the gospel there is nothing but utter darkness and captivity, so that even if we have some little knowledge, yet we cannot follow the same because we are bound.”
The poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed are all those who need the freedom of the gospel, this is us! Everybody apart from Christ fits in this category no matter how wise, or rich, or enlightened they might be according to the world’s standards.
The truly poor are the spiritually poor, without help and without hope, truly destitute. But those who hear the Good News who are humbled by it and truly sorrowful for sin will truly be made rich in Christ, not monetarily but spiritually.
The meat of Christ’s message was liberty to the captives, those who are bound by guilt, and shame, and pride, and corruption, and legalism, and traditions of men.
Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” That’s slavery to empty religious practices and the Law of Moses.
And Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 2:16, “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”
Liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.
Though Jesus did heal the physically blind He went far beyond that by granting sight to the spiritually blind, shining light on those unregenerate souls lost in spiritual darkness.
John 1:4-5 says, 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Preaching was the first work of the Lord, to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, but His work was also to “set at liberty those who are oppressed.”
Not to just preach freedom but to provide freedom. Those who are oppressed, again, is everybody apart from Christ, they are oppressed by spiritual bondage and spiritual debt.
Ellis Crum wrote a song back in the 70’s that said,
He paid a debt He did not owe
I owed a debt I could not pay
I needed someone to wash my sins away
And now I sing a brand new song
Amazing Grace
Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay
The Good News to the poor is that Jesus paid the price to make us rich, to the captives, He took our burden of sin and shame upon Himself, to the blind, He can open our eyes by the power of His Holy Spirit, He has set us free from sin and its eternal consequences by His death on the cross, if we will only trust in Him.
This was the work Jesus was given to do but it is also the work that has been given us to do and we should follow His example: by knowing the Word of God, and preaching the truth, the Good News to the spiritually poor, blind and captive around us.
We all want to see miracles, just like the crowd at the synagogue that day but there is truly no greater miracle than a life made new by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ray Stedman wrote in his book, Body Life, “The physical raising of Lazarus from the tomb was truly amazing – yet it was nothing compared with the miracle of a sinner whose life has been completely redirected by the grace and love of God. All the bodily miracles and healings which Jesus performed were just temporary cures. Lazarus, for example, eventually had to go through death again. But the works that Jesus did within the human heart and human soul was an eternal work, yielding blessing that went on and on without end.”
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim 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.”
Let’s follow Christ’s example and join Him in that work,
Amen.
