Luke
4:14-21
The
preliminaries were over.
Jesus had
been baptized and tested. His reputation
as a teacher was growing.
He had some
disciples following him. He performed his first miraculous sign at a
wedding in Cana of Galilee.
John the
Baptist recognized him, announcing to everyone that this was the Lamb of God.
However, He
had not publicly declared himself. By
this time, He had traveled some in the area of Galilee, speaking in the
synagogues. Everybody gave good reports
of Him. Luke 4:15 says, “He taught
regularly in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.”[i]
When it was
time to announce His ministry, His message and His mission, He starts in his
hometown, Nazareth.
He
recognized, “No prophet is accepted in his own hometown.” (Luke 4:24)
Nevertheless, He
started in His own hometown.
We can
learn a lesson from where Jesus chose to start.
The lesson is that we should start right where we are. If you believe God has called you to a
ministry, start where you are. God will
open doors for you. We all must face our
origins. You may have come from the
wrong side of the tracks. You may feel
God cannot use you because of where you come from. Or, perhaps you believe where you come from
makes you special. Any issue of this
nature will eventually have to be faced.
Even though
He knew it would not be accepted, Jesus chose to announce His ministry, message
and mission in His boyhood home.
Nazareth
was not the center of the nation. It was
a backwater town. When Philip told
Nathanael that they had found the very person that Moses and the prophets had
written about, Nathanael said, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from
Nazareth?” (John 1:46) Jesus did not look to go to Jerusalem, Rome
or any of the important cities of His day.
Just as His birth took place in a stable, He announced His ministry in
an out-of-the-way place.
His
announcement covered three things. These
three things were: 1) His ministry, 2) His message, and 3) His mission.
Following
His example, we can learn much about our own calling as His followers. His ministry, message and mission have not
changed.
We do not
need to seek out the big places, the Romes or Jerusalems of our day. Rather, we need to be sure we are on task
with the ministry, message and mission that He announced, carried out and then
entrusted to us.
First,
let’s consider what He said was His ministry.
I am using
the word ministry in its sense meaning service.
The word minister originates with the meaning to attend to the needs of
someone.[ii]
In a short
time, Jesus built a reputation as an exceptional teacher. Luke 4:15 tells us that He was praised by
everyone. Therefore, when the scroll was
handed to Him in His hometown synagogue, there were great expectations. Jesus chose to read from chapter 61 of
Isaiah. Of course, it was a scroll. It was not divided into chapters. It was not in English. It was not even punctuated or divided out in
the ways we are familiar with today.
However, Jesus went unerringly to the precise location He wanted, right
where it says, “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me.” In our current translations, the location He
is reading from is Isaiah chapter 61 verses one and two. However, He does not even read all of verse
2. He stops in the middle of the
sentence.
For His
audience, this is part of His statement.
They know this passage. Stopping
in the middle would be similar to us saying, “For God so loved the world…” You
and I know to fill in the rest, “that he gave His only begotten Son…”
These
people are waiting. Verse 20 tells us, “All
eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently.”
They are wondering, “What can we expect from this man?” So, Jesus tells them, “The Scripture you’ve
just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”
(Luke 4:21)
The focus
of “What can we expect?” is the focus of ministry. It is the question of service. Government offices are called ministries. There are
ministries of education, finance and the interior. The expectation for the ministry of education
would be that it would serve in the area of education.
The passage
Jesus chose starts with “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”
Although
this does not seem to define an area of service, it is the definition of His
ministry. It is the definition of our
ministry.
Consider
the first part Luke 4 with me. Verse one
tells us, “Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River.
He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.”
Then verse fourteen tells us, “Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled
with the Holy Spirit’s power.” It is
hard to miss the stress on the fact that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Here is the
point: His ministry, our ministry, is not need driven, is not purpose driven,
is not goal driven. It is Spirit
driven.
I love Rick
Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Church. Our ministry does need to have purpose. I support our local food bank, and I am not
speaking against need-based ministry.
However, as important as need and purpose are, these do not define who
we are or what our ministry is.
We are the
Body of Christ. As His Body, the Spirit
of God controls us. Jesus was not
squeezed into the mold of His day and culture, because He ministered/served
according to the Spirit’s direction, and not according to external indicators,
demands or needs.
This is an
important distinction for us to make, because although we are concerned with
needs, social concerns and the problems of the world around us, these things
are not our primary focus. Too often,
these things become the tail that wags the dog.
This is the
first thing we see in Jesus’ announcement, His ministry. The second is His message, our message.
He refers to it when He says, “Good News,” and
uses the word, “proclaim.” However, there is something that should be obvious
to us all. He is quoting Scripture. He is not making these words up as He
goes. As God, these are His own Words,
but as the man Jesus, standing in the synagogue in Nazareth, these are the
Words of God taken from the book of Isaiah.
His
message, our message, is the Word of God.
Jesus
stressed this. He said, “The words I
speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me.” (John 14:10)
I read and
hear a lot of material that tries to explain why the Bible is not God’s
Word. This is foundational. If we cannot trust the Bible, we have no
reason for even gathering. If this book
is not God’s message to us and for us, we are without a message. The Bible can stand up to examination. It is supported by historical evidence. An honest, inquiring mind will find honest
answers. However, the Church that denies
the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures cannot and will not stand. It has lost its foundation.
Jesus said:
18I tell you
the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of
God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved. 19So if you ignore the least
commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in
the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who
obeys God’s laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven. (Matthew 5:18-19)
Our
ministry is defined by the Holy Spirit, our message is shaped by the Word of
God, but what is our mission?
We find our
mission in the action words used in the passage that Jesus quoted.
Before we
look at those action words, let’s review the commission that Jesus gave us just
before He ascended into heaven.
Matthew
28:19-20 says:
19Therefore,
go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20Teach
these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always,
even to the end of the age.”
This
commission, given when He departed, is consistent with what He announced at the
beginning of His ministry.
In Luke
4:18, Jesus says He is anointed to bring Good News, and sent to proclaim.
His mission
is proclamation. It is delivery of the message.
His Good
New was for the poor. His proclamation
was that captives will be released, the blind will see, and the oppressed will
be set free. These are all aspects of
salvation that, as the Savior, Jesus accomplished. The completion of the deliverance is included
in the latter half of the passage, the half that Jesus did not read. The completion of all that He came for is
waiting His return. However, our
deliverance from the spiritual poverty, bondage and blindness we were in is
realized already. Jesus announced the
favorable time of the Lord, the Jubilee.
Our debt has been forgiven. We
have been set free.
The point
is our mission is the proclamation of the Good News. This is the favorable time of the Lord. Today is the day of salvation.
We are not the providers of salvation. We may suffer for the cause of Christ, and
thus, as Paul says, “I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that
continue for his body, the church.” (Colossians 1:24) Even this participation in the sufferings of
Christ was understood by Paul as being subject to the mission. He states the mission in verse 25, “God has
given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire
message to you.”
The life-changing
power of the Church lies in the Holy Spirit empowered, proclamation of the Word
of God. This is our Ministry, Our
Message and our Mission.
[i]
Unless otherwise noted Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New
Living Translation. Copyright © 1996,
2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Steam,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
[ii]
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=active&q=define+minister
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