I’m reading Luke chapter four this morning. I saw something today that I have not seen before.
The chapter starts out with Jesus fasting for 40 days then being tempted by Satan and Jesus successfully rebuffing the attack with authority and with the word of God. Jesus is the word and everything he says is the word of God but he used the written word of God to rebuke and rebuff the devil. That’s not the new thing I saw.
The next thing Jesus does is go back to his hometown of Nazareth. On the sabbath he stood up and read from Isaiah 61, the passage where Isaiah predicted the ministry of the coming Messiah. Then he said, “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”.
Basically, “I’m the guy. Watch what I do, I am the one sent.”
At first the people marveled at him. Then There was a kerflufful and the townspeople tried to kill him. That’s not what I wanted to mention either.
After he left Nazareth he went to Capernaum where he began casting out demons and as they came out they declared who Jesus is but Jesus silenced them.
I’m running out of time this morning, so I will try to hurry this along. Here’s what I saw. Jesus knew he was and what his ministry was to be all about. Let’s revisit Nazareth.
“He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and 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 proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then 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 by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”’
When he entered the next village He did not come into Capernaum loudly proclaiming he was the messiah. He just started doing what God had said the messiah would do. The people he ministered to were allowed to come to their own conclusion about who he is.
He didn’t say Boom I’m the messiah let me get messiahing up in your life.
He took care of the needs of people and showed he was the messiah by doing all the things that Isaiah had predicted. The demons knew who he was and he silenced them, he wanted the people he was ministering to, to make up their own minds about who he is.
This is the part that is new to me. The silencing the demons so the people could draw their own conclusions about who Jesus was and is. That’s the new understanding. Jesus wants each of us to make up our own minds. We can’t change who Jesus is. He was then is now and will always be Jesus The Christ, the messiah, but we each get to come to know him through was has done, is doing and will do in our lives and those around us.
That’s still true today. Jesus doesn’t enter our life like a swat team shouting over a bull horn, “I am the messiah and I have come to take over your life, put your hands behind your head – or up in the air in worship, prepare to be radically changed whether you like it or not!”
No, that is not how Jesus comes into a persons life.
This how. Jesus says this is how he approaches us.
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” Rev 3:20
He saying that to you today. He is saying that to me too, to all of the ones that he died for to save. Now is he is alive and wants to establish a relationship with you, with us.
What do you say? Are you interested?
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