Well, if you would, grab your copies of God's Word and turn with me to Luke 4. Luke 4. We're back in the Gospel of Luke. We've been here for a little while. We'll be here for a little while yet. Luke 4. This morning we're going to look together at verses 14 through 30. Luke 4, verses 14 through 30. We have walked our way very slowly and methodically through the temptation narrative. And as we come now to Luke 4, 14, we begin to see Jesus' public ministry begin in earnest. And we begin to see what that means in terms of how he begins to minister around the region of Galilee, working his way ultimately to Judea and to Jerusalem, where he will suffer for sins. This morning we come to a really significant passage in helping us to understand how Jesus understood himself in his own ministry. So let's look, beginning in verse 14 of Luke chapter four, we'll read these verses together. Here what God's word says. 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. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. And he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, today, this 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. And they said, is not this Joseph's son? And he said to them, doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, physician, heal yourself. What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well. 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 and six months and a great famine came over all the land. And Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha and none of them was cleansed but only Naaman the Syrian. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath, and they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever. When I was wrapping up my time in seminary, it was time for me to start looking for full-time ministry positions. And as you do when you're looking for jobs, I prepared a resume. And I don't know if all resumes are like this, but in ministry resumes, one of the expectations that churches have is that you give them some idea of what you're all about. Not just where you've studied, not just where you've served, but what your commitments are. We might call it a philosophy of ministry or a personal mission statement. So when I submitted a resume to my very first round of churches, and in every one I've submitted since, including here twice, I included a mission statement. You can see it right there at the top of the screen. That's my resume, and you'll notice it has not been updated. That says associate pastor at the top of the list, right? So this is from three years ago, all right? But you notice, this is the philosophy of ministry. This is the summary of what I say I'm about. I am deeply committed to serving the Lord in the ministry to which He has called me. That's a paragraph summary of my personal mission statement. Now, that's not to say that I live that out perfectly, but that's the goal after which I'm striving. Have you ever written a personal mission statement before? Or even just try to summarize what you're all about? what your goals, what your aspirations, what your desires for yourself are. Maybe you have, maybe you haven't. But I think it's a good exercise for us. Ask yourself, what am I here for? Why has God put me on this earth? What do I feel like I'm supposed to be doing? Now, we can ask that question of ourselves. But if it's important for me to ask it of myself in ministry or for you to ask it of yourself in whatever place God has put you, how much more important is it for Jesus to know what his personal ministry or mission statement is? Do we know what Jesus was all about? Did Jesus know what he was all about? If he were giving us a resume, what would we expect to see at the top as his philosophy of ministry, as the purpose for which he was sent into the world? Well, the answer comes in our passage this morning. Jesus lets us know at the outset of his ministry that he envisions himself as the one who is fulfilling God's promises as they are conveyed in the book of Isaiah and as the book of Isaiah reflects all of God's promised purposes throughout the Old Testament. So I want to look at what Jesus says with you this morning and think together about what Jesus identifies as the heart of his ministry and mission in the world. Let's look at these verses together. Look with me in verse 14. Jesus has come back from His wilderness temptation. He's still being led by the Holy Spirit. We read, and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee. And a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. So Jesus has probably been nearer to Judea. He comes back all the way through Judea into Galilee. Galilee was the home region where Jesus had been raised. It was a separate region from Judea ruled by a separate governor under the Roman Empire. And yet Jesus goes here first to begin his public ministry. And as he does, there begins to be a popular crowd gathering around him. They want to see what Jesus is all about. We read in verse 15, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. So at the outset of Jesus's ministry, he begins a preaching tour, going from place to place, preaching about what he's come into the world to do. Verse 16, though, is one of the most significant of those stops along this preaching tour because it's the preaching event that takes him back home. And I can tell you from experience that the hardest place to preach is in your home church. And I can tell you from Jesus' experience here that the most difficult reception that he received was from the people who knew him best. Verse 16 we read, And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. Apparently, Jesus, in light of his popularity, had been invited by the rulers in the synagogue to speak to the people who were gathered there for worship. And so as he did, He receives a scroll. We read in verse 17, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. Now, to be clear, we don't know exactly how the scroll of the prophet Isaiah ended up in Jesus' hands. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah is one of the longest in the Old Testament. The book of Isaiah would have filled an entire scroll. And this is actually the earliest account we have in recorded history of a synagogue service among the Jews. So this is setting a trajectory that we begin to see developed over time. Perhaps there was a scheduled list of readings and by God's providence Jesus just so happened to be assigned Isaiah 61. It's more likely though that the synagogue servant handed Jesus the Isaiah scroll and Jesus himself was able to select a passage from the book of Isaiah to begin to read and explain to the people who were gathered there. And so he does. We read that Jesus unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written. Notice this, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim liberty or good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Of all the passages that Jesus could select in Isaiah, he chooses this one. We ought to be asking ourselves, why? What is it that Jesus is after in this? Well, we get some idea in how he explains himself. Verse 20, and he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Now we live all the way on this side of Jesus's life and ministry and we may not realize what a profound statement this is for Jesus to make. Jesus sits down in front of all of these people and he tells them that what they were looking for, what they were waiting for, what they were longing for is being fulfilled in him. And you can imagine the response he would have received. Now, before we get to the response, I just want to understand what Jesus is claiming about himself here. Because what Isaiah says is actually something that takes place in the broader context of the Old Testament, and it's something that the Israelites in Jesus' own day were thinking about. You see, we need to understand that for the people who lived in Nazareth and other places around Galilee and Judea in the day of Jesus, for them, the exile that resulted from their sin against God had never ended. Now, we might think, well, that's weird, because if you go back and you read Old Testament history, you know, yeah, so the Northern Kingdom, because of their idolatry, was exiled with the Assyrian Empire, and then a little while later, the Southern Kingdom of Judah was exiled under the Babylonian Empire, but if you read the story, even in Isaiah, you learn that Cyrus the Great, the king of the Medo-Persian Empire, sends all of the Israelites back. He says, you can go back, you can rebuild. But it was only a partial return. Because as the Israelites made their way back to the land of promise, as they began to rebuild their towns and cities, as they reconstructed their temple, the problem was they were not free. They may have been back in their homeland, but they were still captive to somebody else. And as far as they were concerned, they were still waiting for God to make good on all of the promises that he had made them. In their minds, though they had returned from their exile, they were still poor. They were still captives. They were still blind. They were still oppressed. They were still waiting for the year of the Lord's favor to come. They were waiting for the ultimate jubilee. Did you catch that word when we sang Days of Elijah earlier? It's the year of jubilee. Do you think often about the year of jubilee? Anybody? Anybody go back to the Old Testament and think about the year of jubilee in the book of Leviticus? Or are you like me and your Bible reading plan starts to get real hard around that time? Now you go back to Leviticus 25 and you read about the provision God makes for a year of jubilee. After seven cycles of seven years, there's going to be this glorious sabbatical year, the 50th year, at which point God is going to reset everything to its original design. He's going to restore people who had sold themselves into slavery to their freedom. He's going to restore ancestral lands to the families to whom they belonged. There's going to be rejoicing and celebration and gladness as they see God's faithfulness in the midst of His people. They're waiting for this declaration every 50th year in God's design that freedom from captivity is finally theirs. and into the captivity of Israel, into the captivity of the Israelites of not just the Old Testament, but of Jesus' own day, Jesus says, you've been waiting for the ultimate jubilee. You've been waiting for the ultimate deliverance from the things that hold you captive. Let me tell you, that deliverance is right now. And I don't know about you, but if I were seated among the people of Nazareth, I would have been like, who? What do you mean this is right now? Jesus is declaring to the people that He is the one they have been waiting for. You see, all of these promises that are communicated in Isaiah and that are conveyed through the Old Testament, they're all wrapped up in one person. They're wrapped up in this anointed one, this Messiah, who's going to bring God's promises to their fullest expression. And Jesus is saying, that is why I have come into the world, to do everything that you've been waiting for, to fulfill all of God's promises, to be the great king who provides the liberty from captivity for which you have been longing and all of the blessings that come with the year of the Lord's favor. So what then is Jesus's mission? You have this listed in your bulletin. I didn't even put blanks, it's just there for you, okay? What is Jesus' mission? Jesus has come to liberate his people from the captivity that resulted from God's judgment and to restore them to the fullness of God's favor. Jesus has come to liberate his people from the captivity that resulted from God's judgment. Listen, whose fault was Israel's captivity? Why were they captive? Whose sin led to their captivity? Israel's, right? Remember that sermon on the genealogy where we talked about how sin leads to exile? They were captives because of their sin. So God brought judgment against them. And Jesus has come into the world to liberate them from that captivity and to restore them to the fullness of God's favor. Now, we can grasp that this is what Jesus says his mission is. But as we do, that should raise a number of different questions in our mind. I mean, for one, why in the world is this relevant for us? Why do we need Jesus' mission and message? What is it that we're looking for in the person of Jesus? Jesus was offering the people gathered there everything they could have wanted. He was offering them the very thing that they wanted most. Jesus was offering them their long awaited restoration. But if you're like me, you look at that and you say, but I'm not a Jew. I'm not the one who belonged to God's old covenant people. I'm not the one who inherited these promises by virtue of my descent from Abraham. So what does this have to do with me? What does this have to do with us here in Mantee, Mississippi in 2025? What we need to understand is that while the restoration that Jesus was offering had an immediate relevance for the people of Nazareth, It's relevant for Gentiles like you and me too. Because the prophets of the Old Testament themselves tell us that the significance of the Messiah is greater than just the restoration of Israel. Listen to what God says in Isaiah 49, 6. It is too light a thing that you, the servant, the Messiah, should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserve of Israel. Listen to this. I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. So here's the idea that Jesus is conveying. Here's the idea that all the scripture is conveying. Beginning with Israel, God's great purpose is to restore sinners like you and me from our experience of captivity. Did you know that we're captives too? Did you? What are we captive to? What are we captive to? What are some things that you and I are captive to according to scripture? Sin, we're captive to sin, right? We are enslaved to sin. Paul uses that language very clearly. We are slaves to sin. What else are we captive to? Death. Death is the last enemy to be destroyed. Every single one of us is subject to the tyranny of death. What else are we captive to? Satan, Satan's dominion, his power, his authority in the earth. Again, we've looked at this recently in the temptation narrative. Satan has the ability and the authority to blind the hearts and minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are slaves. And we need to be liberated. Israel's slavery was a picture in so many ways of our captivity and of our need for deliverance through Israel's Messiah. So what we need to grasp is that not only does Jesus come to satisfy the greatest wants of the Israelites, but he comes to satisfy the greatest wants of all of us. What is it that you're wanting? Only Jesus can satisfy our deepest desires. Only Jesus can satisfy our deepest desires. Imagine with me a young boy. He's living in a large city. And at some point of his childhood his parents have just utterly abandoned him. So he's living alone in these city streets trying to just make it by begging for money and begging for food and scavenging through trash cans. One day he notices an expensive car driving around the neighborhood where he lives and he notices an older boy watching him and seeing what he's up to. The boy comes back day after day and keeps watching him. The boy starts to get suspicious. Why is this older boy over here watching me? Until finally, one day, as he's scavenging through a trash can, this older boy comes and says, hey man, would you like to come home with me this afternoon? Now, the young boy is skeptical. Why would this guy, in his nice clothes, with his nice car, who clearly isn't from around this neighborhood, why would he want me to come home with him? But food is food, and clean clothes are clean clothes, and a bath is a bath. So the little boy says, all right, I'll go home with you. So the older boy takes him to the fancy car, and they climb into the back seat, and a driver takes them to a gorgeous, splendid house. The older boy takes him inside and says, welcome to my house. Can I take you upstairs and show you to our guest room? Sure, the young boy says. So the older boy takes him upstairs, and he shows him to a guest room, and it's laid out perfectly. There's a warm, comfortable bed. There are clothes that are just his size. And the younger boy says, how did you know? He says, well, I've been watching you for a reason. And he says, OK, well, I want to show you something else. And he goes, and he reaches toward a door inside the bedroom, and there's a bathroom. And he says, hey, you can use this however you need it. You want a bath? Take a bath, shower, whatever. This is here for you. And the young boy's amazed. Then the older boy says what he's been waiting for. Oh, and by the way, in just a few hours, my dad's going to be home and we're going to have a great dinner. The young boy is thrilled. The older boy leaves the room and the young boy begins to take a bath and he puts on some clean, fresh, warm clothes and he climbs into the bed for the best nap he's ever had in his life. He actually starts to sleep a little too long, and then all of a sudden he wakes up to this delicious smell wafting into his room. He rushes downstairs, afraid he's going to be in trouble and miss the meal because he's late, only to find the boy and his father waiting patiently for him at the table with a place set just for him. He sits down and he eats the best food he's eaten in years. And he enjoys talking with the boy and his father, learning about who they are. They ask him lots of questions about who he is. Finally, as they near the end of the meal and as they're having dessert, the father looks at the boy from the streets and he says, son, what do you want most? The boy looks at him and says, food? The father says, sure, what else do you want? clean clothes. That makes sense. What else do you want? A roof over my head. What else do you want? A place where I can take a bath. What else do you want? I don't know. I don't have anything. I guess I want everything. The father looks at the boy and says, you do want and you do need all of those things. But son, what do you really want? And the boy starts to think for a moment and gets really quiet. And the father says, son, what you need is not ultimately a roof over your head or food to eat or clothes to wear. What you need is a home. What you need is a father who not only can meet all of your needs, but who gives himself to you in such affection that you can trust that all that you've ever wanted can be supplied. The boy is confused. Oh yeah, obviously I could use all of that, but I mean, I don't have any of those things. Well, the conversation continues, they finish dessert, the young boy stands up and begins to leave, and the father says, hold on just a second, where are you going? Well, he says, your son, he invited me to stay for the afternoon. He said, no, he asked if you want to come home this afternoon. He didn't say for how long. We didn't just bring you home to have your needs met for the afternoon, we brought you home to be with us forever. You will never have another need. All that you want, I will supply. You see what the boy needed was not stuff. He needed a person who could give him all that he wanted and desired. And what you and I need to understand today is that what we need more than anything else is not stuff. What we need is the one who can give us all things. And that is Jesus Christ. Only Jesus can satisfy the deepest desires of your heart. Jesus did not just come into the world to offer you stuff, even stuff you need. Jesus came into the world to offer you himself. And that's the very best gift that he could give. Only Jesus can satisfy our deepest desires. Listen, the gospel is more than a set of truths to be believed that you can list out on a piece of paper and say, yeah, check, check, check, check, got that down. The gospel is ultimately a person to be embraced. Jesus wants you to believe the truth. But more than that, Jesus wants you to believe him. Because it's in the person of Jesus himself that we have salvation. Like the Jews to whom Jesus preached, we are living in a world under God's judgment. We are captive to sin, to Satan, and to death. And the only way we can experience the favor of God is through deliverance and restoration. And we can only experience the fullness of God's favor in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. In the gospel, Jesus is summoning us to himself. Will we receive him? What's interesting about this story is Jesus comes and he looks at these people from Nazareth and he says, hey, everything you want, I've got it. Everything you've been waiting for, I can give it. But do you notice? Do you notice what happens? Jesus says in verse 21, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. But the people of Nazareth who had known Jesus for his whole life, they didn't receive what he said. Initially, there seems to be some receptivity. Verse 22, and all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, is not this Joseph's son? Now, in our English Bibles, we might miss the implications of what's happening here. Initially, they're like, wow, look at Jesus go. And then they go, but that's Jesus. We know him. He's Joseph's kid. We remember as a little boy when he would come and learn in the synagogue with us. I mean, yeah, he was a lot smarter than the rest of us, but he sat right here among us. We know his father and his mother and his brothers and sisters. We know about Jesus. We remember when we would play with him in the streets. We remember when we would see him working in his father's carpentry shop. We remember when he delivered to us the table and chairs that we had ordered. And now this Jesus that we've seen for his whole life is gonna come back and tell us that he's the Messiah that we've been looking for? And all of a sudden, in the midst of their amazement at Jesus, doubt begins to take the place of faith. And as doubt begins to grow, their doubt becomes outright unbelief and rejection. Jesus is sensitive to this. He clues us in to the nature of their response. Verse 23, we read, Jesus say, doubtless you will quote to me this proverb. Physician, heal yourself. What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your own hometown as well. 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 and six months, and a great famine came over all the land and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon to a woman who was a widow. There were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. Jesus looked at all of these people, and he realized that even as he was telling them the truth about who he was, their hearts were full of unbelief, and they weren't interested in Jesus's mission or message, which raises a question. Why? Why would people reject Jesus and his mission? Why would people who were looking precisely for Jesus say, no, this ain't it? Well, ultimately, we need to recognize that the real Jesus defies our assumptions. The real Jesus so often defies the assumptions that we carry around in our own minds and hearts. Listen, the people of Nazareth, they had not only what the scriptures taught, but a whole range of traditions that they were believing about the coming of the Messiah. These traditions became assumptions, and these assumptions, they shaped their expectations. So when Jesus shows up and says, I'm the one you're waiting for, they say, no, because you're not what we were expecting. We were thinking we would get something different. And as a result, as their unbelief became contempt, they rejected the very Savior they needed and wanted most. Listen, our mistaken assumptions about Jesus can cause us to reject the real Jesus when we encounter him. If we have a wrong set of assumptions in our mind about who Jesus is or who He's supposed to be, we can miss out on the real Jesus because we take our assumptions more seriously than what the Bible teaches. As a college freshman, I chose to take college algebra to get my math requirement out of the way. I had taken calculus in high school. I wanted something easy, and so I just wanted to knock it out. So I signed up for a college algebra class with a professor. I didn't know anything about the professor. I was a freshman. I didn't know anybody in the class. The very first day, we all seated ourselves somewhere in this little bitty classroom, and as we were sitting there, we realized the professor was getting really close to being late. So we waited and we waited, and about two minutes after the class was supposed to begin, a young man walked in. He had a lightly trimmed beard, and he was balding a little bit on the top of his head, and he had a bag, and he was dressed kind of professionally. He walked behind the lectern at the desk in the front of the room, sat down his bag, and looked very solemnly at all of us, and we all thought, well, here's the professor. Well, as we were all looking at him, all of a sudden, another figure emerged in the door. He was ancient, probably in his tail end of his academic career, we'll put it that way. He was carrying in his front shirt pocket chalk and an eraser because the classroom that he preferred to teach in was the only one with a chalkboard in the whole school. And he had a Walmart sack full of mysterious papers that I swear in the whole semester he never took out of the bag. He looked really funny at the student standing in the front of the room, And the student quickly ducked his head and hustled back to his seat in the back of the room and hid himself. And the professor began to distribute syllabi. We all thought that the young guy was the professor. And if he had been able to carry on for much longer, we might have been tricked completely. He could have handed out his own syllabus. He could have dismissed us for the day. The professor could have showed up and there was nobody in the room and we could have all gotten in trouble with the administration. But it turned out that we just had an imposter in our midst and our wrong assumptions about what our professor might be like nearly misled us. In a much more consequential way, our faulty assumptions about what Jesus is like can utterly mislead us. We need to make sure that our expectations for Jesus are shaped by the Bible so we aren't deceived by imposters when they come. We need the real Jesus, not the Jesus of religious imagination, not the Jesus that you like to think of, not the Jesus that a storybook told you about. We need the real, historical, biblical Jesus because only the real Jesus can save. Now, into all of this rejection come a number of other concerns. As Jesus responded to the people of Nazareth and all of their wrong assumptions, He actually took them to the Old Testament. He drew attention specifically to a couple of other prophets before Him, because we know that Jesus, among many other things, is the greatest of the Lord's prophets. He is the ultimate prophet, priest, and king. And so he here stands in the midst of these people, and as their rejection grows, he draws their attention back to other times in Israel's history where Israel rejected the Lord's prophet and the Lord's message. Verse 25, 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 and six months, and a great famine came over all the land. And Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath and the land of Sidon to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, but none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. Now you catch what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is acknowledging that the people of Israel have obstinately resisted God's prophets and God's promised salvation for generations. But even as Jesus is acknowledging that, he's saying something significant. He is acknowledging that even though people reject him, he and God are going to fulfill their purpose in the world. God is going to accomplish the mission that he has sent Jesus to accomplish. Even as people reject Jesus, Jesus is demonstrating that God's purpose is bigger than Israel. Even in rejection, God is going to continue to restore and bless sinful, broken people. So what did Jesus' response to rejection reveal about his mission? Notice this, Jesus is faithful even when we aren't. Salvation does not depend first and foremost on your ability to be faithful. It depends on the faithfulness of the ever-faithful God. So Jesus steps onto the scene as the incarnate son and he demonstrates that the success of his mission isn't ultimately dependent on what the people of Nazareth do. They can take him or leave him, but Jesus' mission is going to continue marching forward because rejection cannot slow the progress of Jesus' kingdom purpose. Jesus offers himself to all of us. He offered Himself to the people of Nazareth. He offers Himself now to you. And I think sometimes we think That if something goes slightly wrong, if rejection begins to crop up among people as we tell them about Jesus, that somehow that's going to thwart Jesus's kingdom purpose. That somehow Jesus is gonna look up and go, I don't know what to do now, I put all my eggs in this basket. But what we need to remember is that Jesus's mission is not dependent on any individual response because Jesus can use even our rejection to fulfill his mission. What is Jesus saying here? He's saying that it's precisely because of Israel's rejection that God's grace went to the nations. And if you go and read Romans 9 through 11, that is what Paul says is the case even now. Israel's large-scale rejection of her Messiah led to grace for the nations that's going to provoke Israel to jealousy, so that on the last day Israel will come in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah. God is not hindered by human rejection, but he will accomplish his purpose in its fullness. In 1960, Ella Fitzgerald was one of the most popular singers in the world. Anybody familiar with Ella Fitzgerald? Ella Fitzgerald was remarkably successful. She was a jazz musician. She'd grown increasingly popular in pop music. She was in the midst of a worldwide tour. In 1960, she was singing in Berlin, Germany. And as she was going through her set with her band, she came to a song that she admits in the intro to the song, most people had never heard sung by a female vocalist. She was going to sing the song Mack the Knife. Mac the Knife had been popularized by Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin, and so she was going to take off with her band, and she was going to sing Mac the Knife. She starts singing, first verse goes great, she gets to the second verse, and though she's one of the most famous female vocalists in the world, she forgets the words. Well, what are you supposed to do when you forget the words in a concert? Most of us would probably say, I forgot the words, let's try again. Not Ella Fitzgerald. She just started making up stuff. She scattered her way all the way through parts of the song, boop she bop she boo. And then she would just make up words about different things. She sang about the other people who had sung it. She even acknowledged as she was improvising words that she was making a wreck, this is her exact wording, making a wreck of Mack the Knife. Well, the song ends, the concert continues. The concert was recorded. And by the time that the album was released, Ella Fitzgerald's rendition of Mac the Knife became famous. She'd made a wreck of it, but all of a sudden it began climbing the Billboard charts. It ultimately landed at number 27 on the popular music charts, not especially high. But its popularity and fame would only continue to grow. Later that year, in the third ever Grammy Awards, she was awarded Best Pop Female Vocal Performance for her rendition of direct Max and Ice. And it became the defining song of the entire 1960s for her. She made a mess of a song that she was trying to sing. But because of her talent and her ability, she turned that mess into musical magic. Now, you and I make a mess of a lot bigger things than Mac the Knife. And sometimes we can look at the messes that we can make and we can say, what am I supposed to do with this? But if Ella Fitzgerald could turn Mac the Knife as a failure into a massive success, just because of sheer talent and ability, Jesus can take your mess and turn it into something that brings him glory and fulfills his purpose in the earth. Jesus's mission is not dependent on your ability to fulfill something. It's dependent on his grace and mercy as he works even through the messes that we make to do what only he can do. Jesus is faithful even when we are not. Our sin and unbelief can get in the way, but Jesus can take the worst of who we are and what we do and use it for his good purposes. Now this brings us to one final thing, and I know we're long here, so I want to be quick. Jesus acknowledges that ultimately the Nazareth Jews might resist Him, but He's going to continue His mission. He's going to continue to press forward. People are going to be transformed by the announcement of good news to the nations But verse 28, we see the response in Nazareth. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so they could throw him down on the cliff. It's likely what they were intending to do was to take Jesus up to a high place, throw him down, and then stone him as his body lay at the bottom of the cliff. They were going to execute him. They were so angry that they ignored all of the laws in place. They were going to kill Jesus for what he had said. Now, do you remember another time when Jesus ended up on a high place and we were wondering if Jesus was going to survive it? Just in the last passage, right, the last of the temptations, Satan takes Jesus up on the pinnacle of the temple and he says, throw yourself down just to prove that God loves you. And Jesus says, you will not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus was faithful in the midst of temptation, and now he's faithful in the midst of his mission. So what happens as Jesus is standing here and he's potentially about to die? Well, I want you to notice how God intervenes. Verse 30, but passing through their midst, he went away. The text doesn't tell us what happened. The text doesn't tell us if the people suddenly thought better of their situation, if they all fell down asleep, or if their emotional state changed, or if somehow miraculously Jesus just walked on through and they couldn't touch him. We don't know what happened, but what we do know is that God proved the very thing that Satan tempted Jesus to test in the passage. God showed that he would keep Jesus safe until his appointed time. Jesus was not appointed to die on the brow of a hill in Nazareth being stoned by the people he grew up with. Jesus's mission was always taking him to Jerusalem where he would suffer for sinners. And no matter what people would do, God would ensure that Jesus fulfilled his mission in the world because Jesus came to save. And what we need to grasp in all of that is that in spite of all the challenges and all of the varied responses to Jesus's mission, Jesus's mission is unstoppable. We're called to respond in all kinds of different ways. We have responsibility to hear and respond rightly to Jesus. But what we need to see is that God has already written the end of the story and Jesus Christ will be exalted and he will bring all of his promises to their fulfillment. Now this morning, you may be in a position where you and your sin have anchored your feet to the ground and said, Jesus will not move me. And sometimes what you need to hear is, Jesus has got this and you're going to move. You may move now because you surrender to him in faith and repentance, or you may move later because Paul tells us that the day is coming when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus is Lord whether you acknowledge him or not. But the amazing thing that you need to grasp if you are resisting him in sin is that whatever it is you think you can get outside of Jesus is not going to satisfy, only Jesus can. And he's saying to you this morning, come. and he will give you himself and all of his blessings with him. For the rest of us though, we need to process that the calling that Jesus has given us is one that we're ultimately going to fulfill. We don't go out into the world to preach the gospel hoping we're going to be successful. We go out into the world to preach the gospel knowing that we're gonna be successful because Jesus tells us we will. You know how our missionaries in Southeast Asia can press forward with people who reject them over and over and over again? because they have from God's word that the peoples that they're serving in Southeast Asia will be numbered among the tribes and nations worshiping around the throne of Jesus on the last day. Jesus's mission will be accomplished. So when we go out into the world to preach Christ, when we see conflict and difficulty in the world, when we feel the weight of sin, its consequences in a sinful broken world, what we need to understand is that Christ's kingdom stands secure. Every other kingdom will be shaken except for the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And so we go out in the confidence knowing that the mission of Christ is as certain as the character and person and work of Jesus. And we keep proclaiming him until he comes. Last night, heard reports about a bombing in Iran. And we may have a lot of different perspectives about how to interpret conflict between Israel and Iran and the United States, both politically and in some cases biblically. But at the end of the day, what all of us need to understand is that regardless of how we understand what's happening in global events, Jesus Christ is king and his purpose will be fulfilled. Are we trusting him? And are we living in such a way that Christ's kingship changes everything?