TO PREACH THE GOOD NEWS

Luke 4:14-30

Key Verse: 4:18

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed...”

In today’s passage we get to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. We see that first and foremost, what Jesus did was teach the word of God. This passage also shows us the beginning of Jesus’ rejections. We can learn a lot from that, mainly that the only way to accept Jesus is by faith. The most important thing we can see is that Jesus brings us really, really good news. Did you hear any good news this week? Let’s pray that through this passage we may see how Jesus has news that’s really worth proclaiming.

First, Jesus teaches the Bible in his hometown (14-16)

In the previous passage, we saw how Jesus faced a series of temptations from Satan after fasting for 40 days in the desert. By overcoming the power of temptation, Jesus became the second Adam—God’s new beginning, a new man free from the power of sin. He became the source of victory over temptation for everyone who trusts in him.

After his temptations were completed, Jesus returned to his home region of Galilee. But he did not return there just because he had nowhere else to go; verse 14 says he returned in the power of the Holy Spirit. It was time for Jesus to do God’s work. What did he do? Look at verse 15. “He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.” Here we learn that Jesus’ first and main method of ministry was to teach the word of God. The synagogues were God’s prepared environment for Jesus to bring the good news. Virtually every town were Jews lived had a synagogue; they could not travel to the temple in Jerusalem every week to offer sacrifices, so they kept the Sabbath by gathering in the synagogues to listen to God’s word. In the synagogue service, first a Priest or Levite taught the Bible, and then Jewish laymen could also share a word. In this way God raised his people to be a nation of priests as lay Bible teachers. This also provided the opportunity for Jesus to begin his teaching ministry. He began in a humble place—the synagogues of Galilee. It seems so ordinary, teaching the Bible in the synagogue. Jesus did not stand up on the rooftops and shout, “Here I am! I am the Messiah!” But when Jesus taught the word of God in the synagogues of Galilee, there was a powerful effect. People immediately took notice. Jesus was praised for his powerful teaching. People were amazed by the authority of Jesus’ words, an authority which their experts in the law did not show in their teaching. Teaching the Bible seems too ordinary, but when it is done in the power of the Spirit, there is a tremendous effect.

Look at verse 16. “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read.” Among the towns Jesus visited in Galilee, he also went to his hometown, Nazareth. There must have been many people in Nazareth who had known Jesus his whole life. His mother Mary was there, all his younger brothers and sisters, and maybe Joseph, if he was still alive. Aunts and uncles, high school classmates, old nosy neighbors were all there. It was the same old Nazareth that Jesus had known his whole life. But for Jesus, so much had changed! Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit came to rest on him and he was declared from heaven to be God’s beloved Son. It was time for Jesus’ human background to take a back seat; it was time to fulfill all the scriptures that were written about him and do the work of the Messiah. So things couldn’t really be the same when Jesus went back to visit his hometown. He couldn’t just go to White Castle with his old friends and shoot the breeze. It’s the same for us; if we received God’s calling, we cannot really go back and revisit our youth as if nothing has changed, because we are not the same.

In fact, for us it can be difficult to go back and face our hometown folks again. Often, when we accept God’s calling, our friends and family members are the hardest people to tell about our mission and new identity. But when we accept Jesus with a pure heart, we want to tell our friends and family. Anyway, we cannot avoid sharing the gospel and God’s calling with our family members; they have a right to know. Jesus had a clear attitude; he kept the spiritual order by giving his hometown people the same chance to hear the good news and accept him as the Christ.

How did Jesus tell his hometown people about himself? Let’s read verse 16 again. “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read.” Jesus did the same thing he did everywhere: he simply went to the synagogue and shared a Bible message. This shows us that it’s very useful to have a custom to attend worship service and carry out one-to-one Bible study faithfully. I think it’s much easier to evangelize our friends when we can sit down and read the Bible with them; to me, it’s very difficult to share the gospel during times of just hanging out and chatting. Jesus used his customary Sabbath time as the best opportunity to share a Bible message with his hometown people. Jesus was really happy to share the good news with them. Let’s have the same clear attitude as Jesus to share the word of God with our hometown people the same as with everybody.

Second, good news for the poor (17-18)

What Bible passage did Jesus read? Verse 17a says, “The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.” Surely God had arranged everything beforehand. God prepared the best passage for Jesus to announce the beginning of his ministry. Jesus opened the scroll and found the passage that we mark as Isaiah chapter 61 verses 1 and 2, and Jesus read it aloud in the synagogue. Let’s also read verses 18 and 19 together. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This passage is the most appropriate to announce Jesus’ Messianic ministry—because it is about God’s hope.

Do you know about God’s hope? Originally, these words from Isaiah were words of comfort and hope for God’s people who were living in exile and captivity in Babylon, hundreds of years before Jesus came. God had been angry with his people because of their unceasing idolatries; God’s people were supposed to be a kingdom of priests, but their land was full of altars to pagan gods. So God gave his people bitter medicine by bringing the fierce Babylonian army, who smashed the temple and carried a remnant of God’s people off to Babylon. But through these words of Isaiah, God gave his exiled people hope that he would show favor to them and restore them. God promised them that his anger with them was coming to an end.

The words of Isaiah’s prophesy are written as the proclamation of a servant of God who has been anointed to preach good news. The Jews understood that these words were written in the voice of the Messiah. They knew God wanted them to put their true hope in the coming of the promised Messiah, the Anointed One. And now, in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus read these words in the first person: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.” Jesus is the true ‘me’ that these verses are talking about; he is the Anointed One who is full of the Spirit. What a momentous occasion. What a privilege the Nazarenes had to hear the Messiah read the prophecy about himself. Jesus the Messiah had come to preach good news to the poor! Jesus the Messiah is a preacher of good news. Almost everybody knows that the word “gospel” means “good news.” Let’s spend some time to think about how good is the news Jesus brings.

If you look carefully at verse 18, it mentions four kinds of people who really need to hear good news. Do you see what they are? They are the poor, the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed. They can show us the deep spiritual meaning of “good news.”

The first group of people is the poor. Why does Jesus single out the poor? In Luke 7:22 Jesus also said “The good news is preached to the poor.” Nobody enjoys being poor. Being poor can make people feel so limited in this world. Being poor can be so humiliating. After I got married to M. Anastasia, our bank account was completely empty. I had to drive to work but our car had no gas. So we dug out all the spare change I had kept since I was a college student, and I went to buy $5 worth of gas with nickels and dimes. The gas station attendant rebuked me severely that I was wasting his time and making a backup during rush hour when other customers were waiting. I felt so humiliated to be poor.

What can be good news to the poor? Of course, it’s to become rich! To not be poor anymore! So should the poor go out and buy a lottery ticket? Not necessary. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:3) Jesus’ blessing was for the poor in spirit, though he also pays special attention to those who are poor in this world. Spiritually speaking, the poor are those who acknowledge their need for God and God’s word. They admit their spiritual hunger. They humble themselves before God, knowing that they are sinners.

What does Jesus do for such poor people? He makes them very, very rich. He gives them the kingdom of heaven, where the streets are solid gold as smooth as glass, and the tree of life bears is fruit every month without skipping. What good news! When we humble ourselves as the poor in Spirit, Jesus will raise us up in due time and give us a place in his kingdom to share his eternal riches. Thank God for good news for all the poor!

What is the second group of people in verse 18? It is the prisoners. Have you ever been a prisoner? Ever been in jail? I myself have never been in jail. But it’s easy enough to imagine how miserable it is to be trapped in a prison. What can be good news to a prisoner? Of course, it’s to be set free. Can you imagine how joyful it is for a prisoner to hear the words, “You are free to go”? There is no better news for a prisoner. Imagine how the hearts of the Babylonian captives leapt for joy when the heard King Cyrus’ decree that their captivity was officially over!

Maybe we haven’t been in jail; anyway, we are not in jail now. But in fact, we are all prisoners. In Galatians 3:22 Apostle Paul said, “But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin...” We are prisoners of sin. Our imprisonment to sin means that we do what we don’t want to do every single day. It is much worse than being physically imprisoned; it is a prison for our spirit, which we built for ourselves. How can we be set free from this? In verse 18, Jesus says the he came to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. Jesus announces that those who were in the prison of sin are now free. When Jesus announces our freedom, the devil has no more power to hold us in the dungeon of our own sins. When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he purchased our freedom. So Jesus said, in John 8:36, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” How can we experience this freedom? We must believe that Jesus has proclaimed freedom from our prison of sin. Maybe we are like Peter, who was sleeping in the prison in Acts chapter 12. Maybe we also need God’s angel to come and smack us and say, “Wake up! You are free! Your chains fell off! Get up and walk out of your prison of sin!” What good news that Jesus proclaims freedom for the prisoners!

What is the third group of people in verse 18? It is the blind. There’s only one thing that can be good news for the blind, who live in a world of darkness 24 hours a day. It is, of course, recovery of their sight. Think how much a blind person would pay in order to be able to see for even one day. Incredibly, Jesus also announces recovery of sight for the blind—something that is humanly impossible.

Before Jesus comes into our lives, we are really blind. We are in the darkness of sin and don’t know where we came from, where we are going, or what we are supposed to be doing with this life. But when Jesus came to this world, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (Jn 8:12) His light opens our eyes to give us spiritual sight—the light of life. Then we can see Jesus ruling over everything and leading our lives step by step. We can see Jesus’ world mission vision calling for us and giving us hope and purpose. Once Jesus showed his light-giving power by healing a man who was born blind. After this man was healed, the light of Jesus shone into his heart and grew brighter and brighter. Finally, none of Satan’s attacks could bring him down, because he knew one thing: “I was blind but now I see!” What good news that Jesus brings recovery of sight to the blind!

Finally, the last group of people mentioned in this verse is the oppressed. What does it mean to be oppressed? In English, the root of the word “oppressed” is “press”. The oppressed are those who are being pressed down and crushed by a heavy burden. For example, the Israelites were most heavily oppressed when they were slaves in Egypt. The more Pharaoh became scared of the Hebrews, the harder he pushed them until every day was full of bitterness and pain from their hard labor, and they groaned in their hearts. But God saw his people’s oppression, and one day he came to Moses and said, “I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free.” God gave Moses some really good news for the oppressed Israelites.

People in this world are constantly oppressed by anxieties, by stress, by the people around them who cause them grief, especially ‘that guy’. Even Princeton students are so oppressed by their heavy workload, and maybe by their parents’ sky-high expectations. Actually it is all the oppression of sin. All our lives we were slaves to the power of sin and death. It was continually weighing down on us. What does Jesus do for the oppressed? Jesus releases the oppressed, by bearing all the oppression of their sin on himself. Hebrews 2:14-15 say about Jesus, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” What good news can we give to oppressed people? God had heard your groaning! God has seen your oppression. Jesus has come down to set you free. In Jesus, nothing can oppress you! What good news that God sees our heavy oppression under the power of sin and death and sent us Jesus to set us free.

Let’s read verse 18 again. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed...” Did you hear any good news this week? Because of all the day-to-day struggles of life in this world, it’s hard for us to really believe in good news. Even if we are Christians we easily become cynical and doubt in our hearts whether things can really change. But when we listen to Jesus’ proclamation from Isaiah, we know that there is really good news! We have to repent our unbelief in good news. Let’s accept Jesus’ announcement purely as the best news. Let’s earnestly pray that we may keep the joy of this good news in our hearts.

Third, “This scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (19-21)

After Jesus read this prophecy from Isaiah, he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. Everybody was on the edge of their seats to hear what Jesus was about to say. Jesus could easily preach a long message based on this passage. But he began with just one word. Let’s read verse 21. “and he began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’” Jesus announced that, now that he had come, all the promises of this prophecy were available to God’s people. As verse 19 says, Jesus came “...to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” “The year of the Lord’s favor” means that this is the age of grace. It means that now God’s loving favor is available to anyone who has faith in Jesus.

Since Jesus came, this good news was fulfilled. When we accept the good news, Jesus also gives us the Holy Spirit, so we can preach this good news to oppressed souls in this world in the same way that he did. When we belong to Jesus, the prophecy in verse 18 is true of us also. We also must say, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”

We must also believe that what Jesus said in verse 21 is true. “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” How is the scripture fulfilled for us personally? It is when we hear it with faith. Faith comes through hearing (Ro 10:17). When we have ears to hear the word of God as the word of God, at that moment we are born again as a new creation in Christ. The word of God will also be fulfilled in our Bible students when they hear it with faith; at that moment Jesus comes and sets them free. It can happen today. Let’s pray that the scriptures may be fulfilled in many students’ hearing when they hear us teach the Bible by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Fourth, Jesus is rejected by his hometown people. (22-30)

How did Jesus’ hometown people react to the good news? Verse 22 says the people got very excited by Jesus’ gracious words and began to talk a lot. They started by speaking well of Jesus; the problem is, they kept on talking until so many human thoughts came into their heads. Just because people are amazed by the message doesn’t mean they accept it. Instead, they asked, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” When they began to judge Jesus based on his human background, they lost the power of his message. The grace drained out of their hearts and the word had no lasting effect. This is a real danger. There is a human element to all gospel messengers, but you cannot judge the word of God by people’s human background.

Jesus knew exactly what was going on in their hearts. So the tone of Jesus’ message changed. The good news also comes with a warning. He said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.” (23-24) Maybe the people of Nazareth only hoped Jesus would come and distribute lots of benefits to his hometown people, like politicians do when they get elected. Their attitude was superficial.

Jesus told them about two events from the Old Testament to open their spiritual eyes. The first was about Elijah and the widow from Zarephath. During the time of Elijah, when Israel was under the rule of the idolatrous king Ahab, God sent a severe famine in Israel–not a drop of rain for three and a half years. When God wanted to feed his servant Elijah during the famine and also make him a blessing to the poor, he did not send him to any of the widows in Israel, but to a Sidonian woman – a Gentile. When this woman respected Elijah as God’s servant, she had faith to share her and her son’s last food with Elijah. God blessed her faith and miraculously fed her and her son throughout the whole famine.

The second case was about Naaman the Syrian. He was a proud, high-ranking army commander from a nation that was Israel’s enemy. But when Naaman contracted leprosy, he humbled himself and went to seek help from Elisha, the prophet of Israel. Elisha was not very respectful toward Naaman. But with the help of his servants, Naaman overcame his human pride and obeyed Elisha’s directions to wash himself seven times in the Jordan, and he was healed.

The widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian didn’t judge humanly; instead, they both respected the message that came through God’s servant. And so they obtained God’s blessing by faith, even though they were foreigners. In contrast, when the people who already have God’s word have a superficial attitude, thinking they can judge everything with their human thinking, they are in danger of missing God’s blessing. The Nazarenes tried to justify themselves by judging Jesus’ human background – “I know him, he’s not better than me.” But when they did so, they became blind and lost the chance to receive God’s message through Jesus. Nazareth was a small example of what would happen with all Israel; Jesus would be rejected by his own people, the nation of Israel, and so God began to use the Gentiles as his royal priesthood.

Humanly, Jesus’ warning about the Gentiles was offensive; it was not politically correct; Jesus did not honor his hometown people like they thought he should. So verses 28 and 29 say that in their fury, all the people in the synagogue drove Jesus out of the town and took him to the edge of a cliff to throw him down. Is this the way to have ears to hear God’s word? They thought their status as a chosen people gave them the right to get offended and kill someone who bothered them. In their pride, they became so violent; in fact, they were used by Satan to attack Jesus. But they had no power over Jesus. It was not Jesus’ time to give his life, and no one had the power to take it from him. So Jesus could just walk right through the crowd and go on his way. Jesus did not judge the people at this time; he just left them alone. How sad for them. In the end, we must know that the only way is to receive Jesus and his word by faith.

Today we learned that Jesus brought us really good news: the kingdom of heaven for the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and released for the oppressed. Let’s accept this good news by faith and be full of good news and filled with the Spirit to preach God’s word. Amen.