On Mission Like Jesus

Like Jesus is our current message series. My name is Mark, one of the TLC pastors. I'm so glad that you're joining us this morning. I wanna take you to a really interesting artifact, if you will, in our state. On screen right here, this bridge here is right above the San Gabriel River outside the city of Azusa in Southern California. It was constructed in 1936. And of course the plan was to build connecting roads to either side. But subsequent flooding demonstrated that the whole road part was a lot more difficult than originally thought. And so the state gave up. Since then, this has become known as California's bridge to nowhere. To this day, you can hike to it. You can even bungee jump off of it, which is all fine and good, but these things have nothing to do with the purpose that this beautiful bridge was built for.

And here's why I bring this up. Sometimes God's people, people in scripture, people over the course of the history of the church, sadly can end up resembling this bridge. I mean, we might look like something and we might offer some kind of contribution, but listen, if we miss God's purpose, we miss out on the very reason for our existence. And so today I wanna talk about being on mission like Jesus. Because I think we can all agree there is no shortage of things that can distract us or divide us. It's like Ricky Jenkins said two weeks ago in his excellent message. He said, "Our culture is polarized, tribalized, and as such, we're all traumatized." Now we might shrug this off as simply the way of the world, but it is clearly not the Lord's heart for his church.

And on a personal level, we're all gonna get to the end of our life and we're all gonna face some of the same questions. How did I spend my time and my energy? What did I devote myself to? I mean, did I actually serve God's purposes or did I get sucked into too many things that were of no lasting value? And so my aim for us today is for us to better understand what it looks like to be on mission like Jesus so by God's grace, we can align ourselves to it more closely.

Our passage today is Luke 4:16–30. Comes right on the heels of the scripture we were in last weekend. When at the beginning of Luke's gospel chapter four, he describes how Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. And right after that, Jesus starts preaching in synagogue after synagogue, town after town, and his teaching is just blowing people away. And at the same time, he's healing the sick, he casts out demons, he calms the storm, he even raises the dead. And so you have to think there is no shortage of anticipation, really the expectations could not be higher when he finally returns to his hometown, Nazareth. I mean, this is the kid that they watched grow up. Saw him learn carpentry from his earthly father Joseph, you know, the kid who shared countless meals with friends and neighbors, the one who just lived a few doors down, and now he's back.

Well, let's pick up his story starting at verse 16. Luke says that Jesus went to Nazareth where he had been brought up and on the Sabbath day, he went into the synagogue as was his custom. Again, he was doing this over and over again. And he stood up to read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written, "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 to the prisoners in recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. Now, the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began by saying to them, "Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.

Jesus 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," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed only Naaman the Syrian." All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of town and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Wow, talk about a sermon not going over well. I mean, I've preached some clunkers over the years, watch some of you start to nod off your head, start to bob and it's always kind of humorous when you try to recover, but you know who you are and so do I. But after Jesus preaches in Nazareth, they literally try to throw him off a cliff. Now what is going on? Well, I'll tell you, there's a collision of two very different agendas. The mission of God in Christ and the mission that is stubbornly embedded in every human heart. It's called looking out for number one. You know, where I wanna call the shots, where I want everything to go the way that I want them to go because ultimately it's all about me. And this goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when the serpent said, you know, you can be like God.

But rather than leave us in our proud and sinful state, God promises to reverse us and redeem us to save us from the mess that we have created for ourselves on this planet. And that brings us to the mission of Jesus. I wanna zero in on three aspects in today's passage, three things that will help us understand what's going on here. First of all, what Jesus came to do, his mission. Secondly, who Jesus came to reach that has to do with his ministry, the people that would be on the receiving end of that. And third, how Jesus was received. And of course back then and to this day, the response has been mixed. And I wanna give credit to a pastor named Kevin DeYoung. I'm borrowing and kind of adapting an outline that he has on this passage.

But first, let's talk about what Jesus came to do. According to this passage, the mission of Jesus is to preach the good news and fulfill God's promises. In verses 18 and 19, there's four verbal infinitives. What's that? Four verbs that start with the word to that help us understand his mission. And here they are. It says, to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. I want you to notice that three out of four of these things had to do with preaching or proclaiming. Now, of course, Jesus released people from their diseases or from demonic oppression. He healed them, he fed them. But first and foremost, his mission was to preach good news, that God is offering forgiveness and new life in and through Jesus Christ, something he ultimately accomplished through his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection from the dead.

Because listen, you can have a full stomach. He can give you perfect health. You can have the yoke of oppression lifted off of your shoulders, but you can still be completely lost in your sins. So while Jesus obviously came to meet human needs with deep care and compassion, his mission demonstrates that our deepest need is actually spiritual. In fact, later in this chapter, Jesus goes to Capernaum and he has this really, really long day where he is healing people all day long, late into the night. In fact, Luke tells us it's not until daybreak that he's able to sneak away, try to get some time to himself, but the crowd quickly follows after him, they find him. And if there was ever a moment where Jesus could have established what you might call a healing and deliverance ministry, it was right here and there in Capernaum because there was just this backlog of endless need and they even begged him to stay there. And yet here's how Jesus responds in verse 43, he says, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because there it is, this is why I was sent." So why did Jesus come? To preach the good news and then to fulfill God's promises. And of course, preaching the good news is part of that.

And it brings us back to his reading of Isaiah, which we saw in verses 18 and 19. Because imagine he unrolls this scroll and back in those days, there were no chapter breaks like we have. And so he's unrolling it and he's unrolling it and he's gonna go all the way to what we call chapter 61, which is almost at the very end of Isaiah. And as he does that, he reads what we already saw. And then he says this, he says, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me." And everyone in the synagogue knows, this is a passage about the Messiah, the anointed one of God. And after reading this and the verses that follow, he stuns everyone by saying, "Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." I mean, talk about the ultimate mic drop. It's like, whoa, right there. You wanna know you've been waiting for the Messiah for centuries? Here I am.

Now, to most of us, we're not shocked by this. We know the rest of the story. We just expect that this is what Jesus does. He fulfills prophecy, fulfills promises because he's the Messiah after all. But to the people who heard this in Nazareth, the people that he grew up with, the guys on his baseball team or the man that he used to buy nails from, it's like, wait a minute, he's the Messiah? The one who's gonna fix the world? A couple years ago, he was fixing roofs here. And if you read all of Isaiah 61, you realize that being the Messiah comes with a really big job description. Among other things, as Jesus said, he will proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. That's a reference to what's also called the year of Jubilee in the Old Testament. And the intention for this very special year was that all debts would be canceled, all property would be returned to its original owners, all slaves and prisoners would be set free.

And while there's no record in the Bible that the nation of Israel ever actually did this, it really came to represent the dawn of God's new era on earth, his kingdom come. It's the ultimate reset, forgiveness and a fresh start for everyone. And at first, when he says this, that they're amazed by Jesus, because after all, he preaches like no one they've ever heard and he uses just such gracious words, just speaking to their hearts, but then, well then, a question starts to bubble up in their minds. Isn't this Joseph's son? I mean, don't get us wrong. He gives a really good speech, but maybe all this fame has been going to his head. And if Jesus would have just left them with their doubts, that might've been the more polite thing to do, but Jesus is never afraid to reveal what's going on in our hearts.

And so knowing what they're thinking, he says, I know what you guys want me to do. You want me to say physician, heal yourself. In other words, do for your own, take care of your own. Do here in your hometown, we have heard that you did in Capernaum. And listen, there's nothing wrong with having questions about how God is working or even wrestling with him in prayer over, you know, maybe a lot of time. But in fact, you can read the Psalms, you can read the prophets, you can read books like Lamentations, and you will see that God's people have a lot of freedom to question how he's running the universe. But here in Nazareth, it's different because they take it to another level. You know, they wanna put him to the test. They want him to put on a show, him to put on a show and dazzle them with miracles. They're pretty much repeating the same thing that Satan said in the wilderness to him. Hey, if you're the son of God, prove it here. And now in other words, they want him to fulfill God's promises on their terms, basically saying, you know, unless you do what we want, we won't believe you.

Now, let me ask you something. Is there a time in your life where Jesus didn't exactly show up the way that you expected or you wanted? You know, where you earnestly prayed for something and it just felt like you got crickets. Or their answer came in a very different fashion than you ever expected. The Lord just took you in a completely different direction and you're like, what is going on? And eventually what we figure out is that while Jesus is completely committed to his mission, there's no guarantee that he is committed to ours, that he's probably not going to check every box on our wish list, at least not in this life.

And it reminds me of a time now, almost 20 years ago, many of you know, we lost our second son. He was stillborn about three weeks before we expected it to be his birthday. And that was obviously not our plan A. And a part of the grief involved the longing for another child. We had our first son, Jack. We felt like the Lord had given him a little brother and then he was gone. And so when we were ready, we started to try to have another child and Laura's first two pregnancies with Jack and then with Joseph came very easily, very quickly. And yet month after month after month goes by, there's no pregnancy. We start to wonder if Jack will ever have a brother or a sister, more months go by, still nothing. And when I reflect back on that time, I wonder if that's a little bit of what it felt like in Nazareth. Like Lord, we see you doing good things in the lives of other people, answering their prayers, blessing them. What about us?

Well, at any rate, for those of you don't know the rest of the story, God in his grace eventually sent Luke to us and then after Luke, Anna, we're so grateful. But what we came to realize in that period of waiting between the loss of Joseph and the birth of Luke, which went on longer than we expected, was that the wait was actually a gift. And I say that not to minimize whatever disappointment or grief that you might have, but God brought us to this point in our lives where by his grace, and I want you to hear that, by his grace, we were able to say, you know what? If our family will ever and always consist of just me, Laura and Jack, hey, we are blessed. We are blessed beyond measure. And that was a gift.

Not only that, but I'm convinced that had the Lord answered our prayers for another child on our timetable, that child would have been born into a real void, a real kind of deep grief. And I think we would have very likely seen Luke as Joseph's surrogate, you know, the answer to our sorrow. And that would have put a really unfair burden on him. But rather, again, by God's grace, we were able to just receive him for who he is and with joy, not as his brother's replacement. Listen, we all want God to do things for us in life and many of these things are good God-given desires. And you may be thinking about something very specific right now that you've been praying about or you've been grieving over. Some of these desires will go unfulfilled. And it's terribly hard when that happens.

But here's really the crux of the matter. If we ultimately put the gift before the giver, if we succumb to that, then the gift becomes an idol and we're essentially asking Jesus to be our genie, which could not be further from his mission. There are promises that Jesus will fulfill in our lives, blessings that he will bring, but they will come in his timing according to his will in his way. Which brings us to this second thing. The second issue is who Jesus came to reach, who were on the receiving end of his ministry. And if his mission is to preach the good news to the poor and to fulfill God's promises, well, again, how does that apply to us? Well, you might raise the question, do we have to be poor? Do we have to be in prison? Is his ministry only to the blind and the oppressed? And of course, the short answer is no.

The ministry of Jesus is freely available to all who believe, to all who would receive him. The question really is, are our hearts receptive to him? And generally speaking, he talks about the poor and the downcast because that's when we're more open to God's grace in our lives. And we've all probably experienced that. And Jesus illustrates this by talking about two figures in the Old Testament. The first is a widow who lives in a place called Zarephath that's in Sidon, North of Israel in modern day Lebanon. And God brings a drought and famine on the land of Israel because they're idolatry and it's just terrible, three and a half years. And he tells Elijah the prophet to go to Zarephath and stay with this widow because she's gonna be cooking his meals for him. And it's just classic because it's like Elijah, I want you to go to this widow. She has nothing, but she's gonna be your meal ticket.

And so when Elijah gets there, this widow and her son are literally one day away from starving to death. But Elijah says, hey, if you'll cook for the three of us, God will make sure that we always have enough. And sure enough, day after day after day, she has a jar of flour and a jug of oil and they never go empty. It's God's grace, God's ministry to her, her family and Elijah in action. The second person is a guy named Naaman. Naaman was the commander of the Syrian army and he was a celebrated hero. Unlike the widow, Naaman, man, he had power, he had money and he also had leprosy. And so when he seeks help, Elisha, who's Elijah's successor, sends a message to him saying, all you gotta do is go bathe in the Jordan River seven times and you'll be healed. And Elisha doesn't even go himself, he just sends a messenger and Naaman's a little off put by all this, doesn't really wanna go in the muddy Jordan River, but he quickly kinda repents of that, does what he's told and lo and behold, he is also healed.

The point that Jesus is making is that both the widow and Naaman were both poor in very different ways. One had nothing, one had pretty much everything. Not only that, they were both pagans, they were foreigners, but they had this in common, they were poor in spirit, they were broken, they had a need that they were receptive to God meeting. And so they received God's grace into their lives. So again, Jesus will not be our genie, but when we humbly receive him, he will gladly be our God. As it says in John 1:12, yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. And if you've never received Jesus into your heart and life, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to do that in just a moment.

But first of all, we've talked about why Jesus or what Jesus came to do, who Jesus came to reach. Let's just take a moment quickly to talk about how Jesus was received. Bottom line is this, the people in Nazareth felt entitled. You know, their thought is, of all the people on the planet, Jesus, we really deserve first dibs on your blessing. I mean, where's your ministry to us? And so when Jesus brings up the widow and Naaman, they get the point of the story, he's saying, God's grace isn't just for you, it's for foreigners. It's for people who live on the wrong side of the border. It's for the people you despise, the people that you don't, you've written off. My grace is for them too. In fact, if you refuse me, then that's not gonna stop me from bestowing my grace to them.

In other words, their response can be summarized this way, and so ironic, that by proclaiming God's favor to all, Jesus loses favor with some. Now bear in mind, they knew God chose Abraham and through him Israel to bless the whole world. That's not some obscure passage in Genesis. They knew this was God's ultimate mission, but instead of rejoicing in what Jesus did for other people in other places, they resented him for it. And they clearly didn't appreciate Joseph's son pointing out the smallness of their hearts. It's like nice speech, but stay in your lane, Jesus. I mean, who do you think you are? And it just goes to show. There is a fine line between entitlement and anger. There's a fine line between entitlement and anger. And if I find myself becoming angry often and easily, I would do well to consider what entitlements I think are being tread upon.

Just as there's a fine line between entitlement and anger, there's also one, as you can see in this story, between familiarity and contempt. I mean, of all the things in his hometown, his crowd, they're the very people who try to throw him off a cliff. It's amazing, but don't miss this last line. He walked right through the crowd and went on his way. In other words, Jesus has left the building. Jesus is gonna continue on mission all the way to the cross. But here's the tragedy. They were looking for some kind of gift from God, and yet the one place that Jesus chose to publicly proclaim that he was the long-awaited Messiah was in Nazareth. And yet they missed that because they were looking for lesser things, things that they thought would fill a need that only Jesus can fill.

Well, we're called to follow in the mission of Jesus, not to get distracted or derailed by lesser things. And so often that first step on the mission, it begins with the smallest seed of faith, as Jesus says, where in some way we say, "Jesus, count me in, I wanna follow you." But you know, it doesn't stay there. Jesus says that by his grace, by his word, by his spirit, that little seed, it grows into a tree with many limbs that provides shade and shelter for many. In other words, we become a blessing. Or returning to the analogy that I began with, he calls us to be a bridge between a desperate and needy world and the God who loves it, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, and yes, paving the way with kindness and compassion, ministering in love to people that we agree with, and ministering in love with people we don't, call to humbly and generously attend to the needs of the poor and the downcast, while never neglecting our call to preach Christ crucified. Because apart from him, there is no other gospel. There are only bridges to nowhere.

So, as we close, I wanna ask you to ponder something, and this is especially appropriate, given the fact that we're about to receive communion. Would you ask yourself this key question, which is, what does this passage reveal about my response to Jesus? My response to him and his mission? Maybe it's confirming that your heart priorities are exactly where they should be, and I have to, this is such an amazing church, such a generous church, such a loving, compassionate church, I have to think that this is true of so many of you to and likes, and praise the Lord for that. That's his grace in action.

But maybe, just maybe, it's also surfaced a grudge or resentment that you have towards a person or groups of people, because they don't think the way you do. Quite frankly, they annoy you. Maybe God's calling you to rethink that. Or you're in a situation that you never imagined, you're overwhelmed, and you've been praying earnestly, but Jesus has not showed up yet, not in the way that you would hope or expect. Or perhaps, Jesus just doesn't wow you like he used to, and not only do you find yourself drifting from his mission, but drifting from Jesus himself. Or finally, perhaps, Jesus has been showing you an opportunity to minister, to reach out to those around you in his name and for his purposes. And now's the time to say, yes, Lord, I wanna do that.

Wherever you are today, my prayer is that the Lord will meet you in this moment. And if you've never received the Lord, this could be your moment to simply say, Lord, I admit that I am bankrupt, spiritually speaking, I'm lost, I need you, and I believe that you canceled my debt, you paid for it by your death on the cross, and that you're alive today because of your resurrection. I wanna follow you, it could be just as simple as that. If any of this resonates with you, I wanna pray for you right now.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity we have to hear from your word and your spirit, to be together, albeit remotely as your church. And so Lord, I pray that you would continue to work through Twin Lakes Church and to do so all the more, Lord. These are trying times, and so Lord, may they not only refine us and refocus us, but Lord, may they reenergize us in a way that compels us out of love to serve your purposes in our community and in our world. And Lord, I pray for anyone who, for the very first time, has says, Lord, count me in, I admit that I need you, I believe you're the answer to my need, and so now Lord, I wanna trust you with my life. Lord, I pray that you hear the prayers of those hearts as well, I know you will, and that you will lead them from this day forward. In all the purposes that you have for them. We pray all these things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.