Jesus and the Church: Week 4

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0:00 So we're thinking about this week, we're thinking about the role of the church and the life of Jesus. We've been on that for the last several weeks and looking forward to this next story. Hit me in a new way this morning and the way I hadn't really thought about it and that's always fun and that happens. I don't know how this idea has been, how this looking at this role of the church and

0:33 life of Jesus has been traveling with you over the weeks. But the message from last week about this like how that which Christ he inhabits he redeems and sanctifies the idea that Jesus in going through the process of repentance redeems and sanctifies the practice of repentance for us so that we find life in the practice of repentance

1:04 has been really, that idea has been helpful for me at different points in my life and I'll tell you why because sometimes when you take honestly the call to be a person of faith it's very easy to feel like a failure or to be acquainted with feelings of guilt or shame. And the reality that Christ sanctifies the process of repentance ought to be an indicator

1:37 for us that when we go through repentance if we still feel guilt and shame on the other side of repentance it is not from God. And that truth that repentance leads me to the goodness of God has been helpful for me this week as a little marker for where I'm at in my relationship with God and where I can go, what voice I'm listening to. And I want to walk into that again this week in Luke's account of the gospel so much of

2:11 the life of Jesus in Luke's account. And I want to look at Luke chapter four we talked last week about Jesus going through the process that the church goes through even though it's not apparent why he would that the rest of the church is called to repentance and Jesus incarnated God goes through the process of repentance. Right after that baptism of repentance he goes out into the desert and that can be unique

2:43 calling for Jesus it's not really a calling for the rest of the church if we were to spend a little bit longer time on that we might draw some parallels to show that Jesus is completing there or doing a thing that the church has always been called to do and always fail that doing and it's conspicuous that he does it over 40 days and in the desert and mirrors kind of the life of Israel but really where he comes back to us to the church is just after his period of temptation in the desert.

3:16 And I want to look at we can look at verse 14 of chapter four in Luke's account of the gospel. Luke says there and Jesus returned in the power of the spirit to Galilee and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country and he taught in their synagogues being glorified by all. We're going to put together a little map of what Jesus is doing. I'm turning around so that we're looking at the map the same way imagine there's a map

3:47 right here and if you can if you ever like had a map in the back of your Bible when you were growing up or if you were to right now Google ancient Near East in the first century Jerusalem in the first century what the defining characteristics are on the top there's the Sea of Galilee which if it's this big then the Dead sees about the size right here and the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea are connected by the Jordan River right.

4:19 And Jerusalem is down here. Nazareth is over here and then like Capernaum and Bethsaida are all in the Sea of Galilee and Jesus spends most of his time in ministry working in and around the Sea of Galilee. Sea of Galilee is what he walks across on the water and calls Peter out it's when he calms the waves and the wind he's on the Sea of Galilee with the fishermen. But what's interesting here if we follow the life of Jesus if he grew up in Nazareth

4:54 and he was old enough at the time of his ministry to maybe be paying a temple tax he's just over 20 you pay temple tax when you're 21 and older right. So he's old enough to be paying a temple tax and taking disciples he's just over 20 right. And when when he first starts on the scene he comes down to John the Baptist and remember John the Baptist is just outside of Jerusalem at the Jordan River so for us here Jesus has come from Nazareth down to here to where Jerusalem is and then out from Jerusalem to the Jordan

5:30 River that's a couple days walk altogether. He gets baptized in the Jordan River the Holy Spirit comes down on him then he goes out into the desert the Jordan River is this like fertile little section right because there's water in the midst of a desert so he leads the fertile section and then it comes up and what we just read in Luke chapter 4 verse 14 he's in Capernaum which if you look at the story of the disciples most of the disciples grew up together in Capernaum a little fishing

6:01 village on the Sea of Galilee and let's say the Matthew the tax collector is for that region right there so he he comes when he's an adult gets baptized by John the Baptist goes out and fast for 40 days and is tempted by the devil himself in the desert then goes up and starts collecting young men younger than him in his mid 20s when they go to pay the temple tax only Peter and Jesus pay the temple tax so a lot of scholars think that that Jesus has collected a group of 11 disciples who are all under the age of 21 he's got like a youth

6:38 group and he's walking around right Capernaum Galilee and northern Israel with this like group of young men and he's starting to preach and teach and the story that Luke gives us is in his back he's back in his hometown of Nazareth so he goes through that temptation period goes through Capernaum starts to collect disciples and these guys who were not disciple material for other rabbis he collects his disciples for him they take them away from fishermen and from fishing and

7:09 tax collecting and then he goes back he's now back in his hometown so he's been gone I mean 40 days 40 nights plus however long he's into pernham plus how long it took him to get down he kind of like kind of went off right and now he's come back and verse 16 and he came back to Nazareth probably around the Sea of Galilee and then back down to Nazareth he came back to Nazareth where he had been brought up as was his and as was his custom he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day

7:41 this is the first thing I want to see if we think about the role of the church and the life of Jesus he he's been baptized and the Holy Spirit has acknowledged him this is my son whom I love with him I am well pleased he has defeated in three different ways the temptations of the enemy and be attended to by angels he's assembled a group of followers who are now his disciples and he started some healings and miracles and Capernaum and he's been teaching but every time he teaches it says as is his custom he goes to the synagogue the weekly gathering of the church and there's a lot

8:20 we could say there but I just want to pause for a minute and go the Creator God of the world has been preparing a mechanism to restore humanity and creation to what they were intended to be from the very beginning and in a stroke of genius and inconceivable grace he figures out the incarnation shepherds the incarnated God through childhood teaches him by rabbis remember when he gets lost

8:54 in Jerusalem and then the way he will launch the new reign of God in the world is one-on-one walking into little gatherings of the church in northern Israel little seaside villages on the Sea of Galilee one of the refrains for me over the last year has been that notion that the strength of God is found in the weakness of the world the wisdom of God is found in the

9:29 foolishness of the world God literally launches a plan to save humanity through weekly little church gatherings in backwoods places it's fascinating to me I can imagine a number of different ways where the incarnated God could attract some attention and build a following in order to launch a kingdom on earth then going to some small seaside church services right but he goes to some small seaside

10:04 church services as was his custom he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read the normal way especially if he had a traveling rabbi was the scroll would be just rolled out anywhere maybe where they had left off last week you'd give it to the rabbi he'd read a section and then he'd interpret that section for you in keeping with the tradition of the rabbis before him so Jesus is the traveling rabbi and the scroll and the prophet Isaiah was given to him and he unrolled his scroll and found the place where it was written the spirit of the Lord is upon me

10:39 because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to set out liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and rolled it up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down at those times the preacher sat down i don't know why we changed that but we did and the eyes of all and the synagogue were fixed on him and he began to say to them

11:12 today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing this is uh he's quoting the text from Isaiah that i read is our call to worship and what's interesting when you go back and read the original Jesus makes actually a selective quote of the original um let me see if i have the original marks here still you know i don't but i can find it it's Isaiah chapter 61

11:43 so Jesus says uh Jesus says in Luke the spirit of the Lord is the onyx and he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor and then it says he has sent sent me also to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to the three things to proclaim there the spirit of lord has anointed me for this purpose to proclaim good news liberty to captives and sight to blind really good things um those are really good things

12:14 um he has not sent him to proclaim hey uh church good job y'all are it build a wall let's call this thing done he doesn't say that he doesn't say the spirit of the Lord has as sent me to proclaim gather your children get in the boat we're all done and leaving he doesn't say the spirit of lord is learning to proclaim you guys have been doing a great job

12:47 I have come only to the ones who behave and you all are behaving he doesn't even say that it's very interesting to me who he has come for that he has come to proclaim something good news to the poor we might interpret that as poor in spirit or also just actually not have any material goods poor liberty to the captives we might we might understand it to be occupied countries and people in prison but we also might understand captivity in a lot of different ways

13:19 but he has come to produce to proclaim to the poor the captives and the blind and then to set at liberty so he's come to proclaim and to set at liberty to give away freedom to people who are oppressed so he's come to the poor to the captives to the blind and to the oppressed

13:49 this is who he has come for um which category are you in pick one and when i see passages like this i get kind of real serious about that because um Jesus that he came for a certain subset of people so i would like to be one of the people that Jesus came for because i believe Jesus is making a new world and taking people with him and i'd like to go and so he has come for poor blind captive and oppressed you can be in all four if you can

14:30 identify as all four but you ought to be in at least one of those categories thinking about Jesus coming for these types of people because then he goes on we'll get back to Isaiah 61 in a second but before i want to get to what he does with this because it's really interesting uh verse 21 and he began to say to them today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing and all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth so he was eloquent we've

15:00 talked about this before i don't know why but it's lovely that when god speaks he often speaks in poetry Jesus seems to have been a good communicator um and they were marveled at his words because they were really beautiful and they said wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute isn't this Joseph's son he pulled out this this prophecy he reads the interpretive they're like this guy is amazing and

15:31 then they're like wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute don't we know this dude and who is he to say he's coming to fix the problems tell us that we're poor and captive and blind and he can help us see who who is he isn't this Joseph's son and then he says to them a doubtless you will quote to me the problem physician heal yourself we

16:03 have heard what you did in Capernaum do here in your home do here in your hometown as well he's like he's saying oh yeah doubtless you'll say to me hey man can't you do something like can't you like heal some people or like we don't really in other words we don't really believe you and don't you owe us something aren't you Joseph's son like can't we drop in a quarter and get the thing that we need instead of you telling us what we ought to do or who we ought to be or what we really need can't you just do what we want since we know you

16:38 and then look at this is like kind of chilling the story Jesus tells to get him verse 24 and he said truly I say to you no prophet is acceptable in his hometown but in truth I tell you there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens were shut up three years for six months and a great family came over all the land and Elijah went to none of them but only to zeraphas in the land of thitans to a woman who was a widow

17:10 converted a story it was there was long famine in Israel probably imposed by God he has a prophet Elijah who sent him out to a widow who was about to die outside of Israel and he saves her and Jesus tells a little church gathered in Jerusalem there were plenty of widows in Israel Elijah could have saved and he didn't there were plenty of people in the church who he

17:41 could have saved but he didn't when he got that one outside the church then he goes has another story and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to zerapha then went aside into a woman who was a widow and there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elijah and none of them was cleansed to only name in cereal same situation where name in Syrian came to Elijah said I've got leprosy would you heal me Elijah says sure do this thing that God commands you and he's healed and

18:12 Jesus the incarnated God is saying there were plenty of lepers in the church who needed to be healed and one came to Elijah and after healing and got it and it was not an Israelite right and when they heard all these things all in the synagogue were filled with wrath and they rose up and drove them out of town and brought them to the brow of the hill where their tower was filled so they could throw them over the cliff they're going to stone Jesus first where you start stoning either you get a big rock that's so big you can barely carry it and heave it on their head

18:45 or you throw them off a cliff so they break their legs and can't run away then you run down to the bottle of cliff and drop rocks on them they walk Jesus up to the edge of the cliff because they're going to push him over and start stoning him because they don't like it that he told them that Israel has been left out of God's blessing when they don't feel like they need it this story got me thinking about the garden for the in a different way I never thought of this before how persistent is the pride of Adam and Eve that they're standing in a garden God made for them

19:16 they're happy our buddies with the creator of the world walking with him the cool of the evening and they think they don't need him you can't get closer proximity to God then Adam and Eve and their pride pushes through the proximity of God to be sure they that they don't need God the parts that Jesus leaves out of Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 61 the spirit of Lord God's upon because he is an ordinary to preach good news to the poor he has sent me to brine up the broken

19:47 heart of to claim liberty to crop this and opening a prison those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn to grant to those in Zion to give them beautiful address instead of ash and glory that they may be called oaks of righteous he leaves out what we call the alien work of God because Jesus is coming to announce this proper work of God redemption freedom healing

20:21 but God comes to give healing redemption freedom to those who need it it's for the sick that he has come and here's the terrifying thing for the church over and over throughout our history history in scripture and outside of it the church breathes a very special form of hypocrisy

20:57 we're in the proximity to God a special breed of pride gives way that is uniquely kind of callous and myopic that pays attention to the fact in the neighbor without looking at the board in our own eye who is thinking about dear Adam and Eve those first ones

21:35 and the church gathered in the synagogue in Nazareth with the savior of the ready to stone the savior of the world because he said you are poor and blind and captive from there is freedom and healing from God but it comes to those who are ready to believe

22:08 that they need it comes to those who are ready to believe that they need it I think that Jesus telling the story about the widow and the leper the widow of Jerapheth and Nain and the leper was a little bit terrifying for me

22:38 it's a very hard question for me how Jesus could say that so confidently there were many widows that could have been saved but Elijah was sent to the one at Zerephath and there were many with leprosy who could have been healed but only Nain and the Assyrian when I think about the trajectory of my life I want to be one who is healed and sent free and what I am learning when I look at the role of the church in the life of Jesus is that for some

23:19 divine reason God with patience continues to come back to the church like Jesus would say I must come first to the loss of Israel he stands outside of Jerusalem and says oh how I long to gather you under my wings like a mother hen though you would kill me

23:52 it's fascinating that that he has patience for the church even to the point of his death and the church's pride persists on past his death like I just I want to encourage you that for some reason God is committed to continuing to offer grace and forgiveness through the gathered church on earth does it in Israel in the Old Testament in the synagogue

24:26 in the first century in the life of Jesus and in the church the Echleistia on through the first century and down the history of the world that as long as you find yourself among the people of God you will be offered again the opportunity to identify with the poor the blind and the captive and to receive liberation healing and liberty over and over again every week this is why we are the church because we have this unique breed of pride with weird persistence and a gracious

25:04 flow to anger divine God who comes to meet the pride over and over again like right here and now here here the good news of God today is here you have liberty freedom healing forgiveness in God

25:38 let me pray hey lord make us do our church today and thank you for your persistent grace towards us break down our hypocrisy our pride awaken us again to our captivity and blindness to our poverty of spirit make us well in Jesus' fangled brain