2-3-19 Grace-Tucson Sermon

Luke 4:20-32 [Epiphany 4]

Pastor Ron Koehler

Grace—Tucson, AZ February 3, 2019

LORD, SPEAK TO US THAT WE MAY SPEAK In the name of Jesus, our Lord and our Savior, dear friends, This morning we have a sequel to the standard gospel lesson from last week. Now, since we celebrated Mission Festival here last Sunday and had special mission Scripture readings, we didn’t hear what happened right before the words of our gospel lesson for today…and they are important to understanding what we hear today happened with Jesus as he taught in the synagogue in his hometown early in his ministry.

It was Jesus’ regular practice to be at the synagogue each Sabbath day for worship.

He had been teaching while he was at the synagogues in the area and people were loving him and speaking highly of him! On this day, he was in Nazareth, where he had grown up. He was handed the scroll so that he could read and teach from Isaiah. And this is what happened: He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began to tell them, “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

You know how movie sequels are very often not as good as the original? Sometimes it’s simply because the sequel is never thought of or planned for until the original movie caught the interest of people…and made a lot of money! Then, because movie-making is every bit a business as much as an art, the rest of the story is dreamed up and presented.

This sequel from Luke’s gospel was not an afterthought, however. It is simply a continuation of the story—the history, actually—of what happened when Jesus taught in his hometown synagogue. Today’s gospel lesson—this “sequel”—picks up where the previous gospel lesson left off—with Jesus using Isaiah’s prophecy to say that he was the promised Messiah, the one anointed by the Father: He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began to tell them, “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

In the rest of the words before us this morning, there is a bit of speaking going on.

Jesus speaks…the people speak…Jesus speaks again…even the actions of the people speak! I would like us to concentrate on the speaking that Jesus did and then— because this is the season of the church year when we celebrate Jesus being the Savior of all people and that we are God’s witnesses—we will consider the speaking that we are to do about Jesus.

Let’s begin with what Jesus said. As I mentioned, that day in the Nazareth synagogue Jesus taught that he was the fulfillment of God’s promises given through Isaiah. Jesus was preaching the good news of God’s love in sending him as the Savior.

He proclaimed that he himself would free those held captive by sin. He would do miracles like enabling the blind to see. He would pronounce that God’s grace was being extended through him as the promised Savior. The Lord’s earthly ministry of teaching and preaching and healing had begun. Three years of it lay ahead of him and during that time Jesus would continue to fulfill the promises of God as he would hold up under temptation after temptation and yet would not sin.

Jesus would continue to fulfill the promises of God as he became the sacrificial Lamb of God, bearing the wounds and pain and even the death that should have rightly been ours. By doing so, he paid for our sin, just as God promised he would. And he fulfilled the promises of God as he defeated the devil and conquered death for us.

At times, as Jesus did all those things, people rejected Jesus and the words he spoke.

That day at the synagogue was one of those times. As Jesus taught that day, people were moved! They stared at him, hanging on his every word, waiting for what might come next! Just like during sermons here at Grace, right?! Okay, not really the same thing. No, this was much better; this was the Lord speaking and the news he had to share was amazing! And so it says, They all spoke well of him and were impressed by the words of grace that came from his mouth. His message was that the Savior was here! This was just what they had been waiting for and just why they went to synagogue each week!

But the good feelings those people enjoyed that day quickly started to melt away like an ice cube in the Arizona sun—once they realized that he really meant that he was the Savior…that the guy talking, the young man they saw grow up down the street, the same boy they spoke with when they visited Joseph’s carpenter shop—he was claiming to be the Savior!

You can almost picture it, can’t you? Their smiles dripping off their faces and mouths begin to hang open as they realize what he is saying! This same Jesus, whose dad they knew well, he was the Savior God’s people had been praying for for so long? He was the one who would heal people and bring forgiveness? “Come to think of it, what about the stories we’ve heard coming out of Capernaum?”, some started thinking. But Jesus knew their hearts and minds even before they could say anything more than “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” So he said, “Certainly you will quote this proverb to me, ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ Do here in your hometown everything we heard you did in Capernaum.”

But Jesus wouldn’t give in to the cry for a magic show—he wanted to preach the prophecies of Scripture fulfilled in him; so he did. And he blew the whole situation wide open when he said, “Amen I tell you: No prophet is accepted in his hometown.

Then he told a couple of the most well-known stories about a couple of the most wellknown prophets. He refers to Elijah’s miracle of providing for a widow in time of famine (our first lesson today) and Elisha’s miraculous healing of Naaman’s leprosy. What might not be entirely clear to us was not lost on those people. They did not miss what Jesus was saying—that he too was a prophet and would do miracles, that, in fact, he was THE prophet, the Savior God promised through Isaiah!

All the drama you could ever want from a movie is found right here in the reaction of that crowd of worshipers: All those who were in the synagogue were filled with rage when they heard these things. They got up and drove him out of the town.

They led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. If this was a TV movie, the commercial break would come now—after all, this is a true ‘cliffhanger’! But we’re not stopping—But (Jesus) passed through the middle of them and went on his way... Oh, that’s kind of anticlimactic—right?! There’s no great chase scene, no Mission Impossible-type plan or get-away. The Savior simply walked untouched through the middle of them.

I wonder if they realized that Jesus was showing his divine power. I wonder if they realized that they had, in fact, just witnessed the miracle of Jesus’ strength. Stopping his work of redemption just as he was revealing himself to be the Savior? That just wasn’t going to happen! Why? Because in addition to being the man they saw before them, who had grown up with them in Nazareth, he was also true God. He was just beginning his work of redeeming the world. He had divine authority and he had revealed it to them, but they sinfully rejected him. Jesus then left Nazareth and went back to Capernaum to teach there and the people there sensed the authority of his teaching; they were even “amazed” by it.

By faith, you and I have also seen and heard the Savior. Only by the grace of God do we know and trust in him. Because we have faith and are God’s children, he now entrusts us with speaking on his behalf. Instead of Jesus personally walking around and teaching today as he did then, he sends us out just as he sent his first apostles.

We are to share with others the promises of God. We are supposed to tell people about God’s promise of forgiveness in Jesus. We are to comfort others with the truth that because Jesus lived and died and rose, all who trust in him for forgiveness will also rise to eternal life when they die.

Just like when Jesus spoke, people will react to us in different ways at different places and at different times. At first, some will like what we have to say about Jesus. But when we get to the details they may reject us. They may not like to hear that their imperfections create a need for repentance and looking to Jesus for forgiveness. They may not like hearing that they will go to hell without him. They may hate hearing that Jesus speaks against their lifestyle of greed and materialism or their abuse of alcohol or their violence or any number of sinful things.

And it may happen that people reject us because they know us! That was even a problem for Jesus, wasn’t it? They knew the hometown boy and rejected him—and he was perfect! What chance do we really stand?! We are sinful people and people may reject what we say because they know we’re not perfect. All the more reason for us to watch the way we live, isn’t it?! We don’t want to give people reason to disregard what we say when what we have to say is the most important thing they will ever hear!

But really, we are not the issue, Jesus is. Listen to these words of Jesus to his disciples: “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me.

And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me (Luke 10:16).” If people listen to us, it’s because Jesus speaks through us and he makes it work. If people reject us, don’t take it personally; it’s not you—they’re rejecting Jesus and what he says. And whoever rejects Jesus, does not have God at all. Remember, God does not call you to be “effective” as you speak his Word, he simply calls you to be faithful in speaking it. As you do that, God will give faith to some, while others reject his saving message. That’s what happened even when Jesus spoke and it will happen when we speak for him.

The people of Capernaum recognized authoritative teaching from Jesus. What comfort there is for us, then, when we hear Jesus say that we speak with his authority! Most of you know these words: Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” But did you realize that these words come first? Then Jesus came to (the disciples) and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go…(Matthew 28:18-20).”

We call those words of Jesus “The Great Commission,” Jesus sending his followers out in his name and with his authority to baptize and proclaim the gospel. That goes for you and me, his followers today, as well. We speak with the authority of Christ as we proclaim the promises of God and speak in his name. That is a sobering responsibility, isn’t it?! But it’s also comforting to know that we’ve got Jesus backing us up and doing the real work on hearts and souls.

To close the service today, we will sing the hymn I titled the sermon after—“Lord, Speak to Us that We May Speak.” When we sing that hymn, we express the desire to speak God’s truths and promises and gospel because we understand that this is the God-given responsibility of every Christian and because we love the Savior for the love he first showed us. These are thoughts in the 4 stanzas of hymn 561: Stanza 1: We want to speak as Jesus did in order to seek straying people.

Stanza 2: We want to lead others to Christ and feed them with the Word.

Stanza 3: We want to teach Jesus’ precious truths to many hearts.

Stanza 4: We ask God to fill our hearts so that we can’t help but tell of Jesus’ love and give praise to God. Think about the words as you sing that today and determine in your heart to speak for Jesus because he has spoken to you and given you faith to trust his words of love and forgiveness. I pray that you can sing it and mean it—Lord, speak to us that we may speak. That is our commission from Christ and it is our labor of love until the day comes that we speak to our Savior face to face in heaven. Amen.

Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.