Luke chapter 4, beginning at verse 16, the word of God. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book and gave it again to the minister and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bear him witness and wonder that the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land. But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elishua, the prophet Elisha, and none of them were cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way. Here ends the reading for the scripture lesson this morning, and I'd like to call your attention specifically to verse 21. And he began to say unto them, and then these words, this day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears. Let us pray. Holy and merciful Lord God and Father of thine only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom thou didst send, whom thou didst not spare, and in whom thou hast provided a redemption so full and so rich and so free that it behooves us to humble ourselves in silence before thee and to be given ears to hear thy word and to have life by thy word through thy spirit. O let thy spirit be our constant aid at all our ways. our ears may be directed to keep thy word, so to be obeyed that from all unbelief we might ever be protected. We shall not be ashamed then, nor afraid when thy word we have ere respected for Jesus' sake. In His name, Amen. Esteemed and beloved brothers and sisters, this morning I've entitled my little conversation or my meditation, The Sun, S-U-N. He also was the S-O-N, but the sun in the Nazareth pulpit. You know, the Lord has something in store for all of you here at PRTS, whether in the MA or the MDiv or THM program, and someday soon you will commence your task. Perhaps at times you dream about it, you wonder about it, and long for it. But you will commence it, the Lord willing, perhaps in a classroom, or in a pulpit, or in a pastorate, or knocking on doors on a mission field somewhere. But you will inaugurate the charge given to you by the Lord. The words of our text this morning are likely Summary, if not the first sentence of the sermon of the Lord Jesus Christ, the first sentence of his sermon, and the first sentence of a sermon can be very decisive, can, as it were, really sink in Well, it did sink in, in a measure, in Nazareth. But what happened there was a very momentous service in the synagogue. Jesus, the preacher, and his sermon, the first sermon was, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. I'd like to call attention to six points. You'll hear them as we will go along, flowing from this first sentence of his sermon. First of all, the eagerness of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Think of it that the Lord Jesus was not born in Nazareth, but he was brought up in Nazareth. The residents of Nazareth knew him as the carpenter of Nazareth, together with his father Joseph and the son of Mary. in that small village. Everyone knew everybody else and Jesus knew them as well. Strange rumors had reached Nazareth about this carpenter, Jesus. He had spoken in various synagogues in Galilee And there were rumors of what he had said and rumors of miracles he had performed. There were rumors buzzing around him in Galilee, in Nazareth. Now it was Sabbath and Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath in Nazareth this time. It was his custom, but this time it was very conspicuous because he had been away for quite a while from Nazareth. The synagogue service began. Thanksgivings and blessings were spoken before and after the Shema here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. Next, there was psalm singing and prayer with the response of amen by the congregation. Next, the reading of a passage from the Pentateuch, and then a passage from the prophets. Next, the sermon, a word of exhortation. There wasn't just one minister there who did all the services. This time Christ stood up. And the ruler of the synagogue called on Jesus to deliver the sermon. The scroll of Isaiah was handed to him, and he unrolled it to Isaiah chapter 61, beginning at verse 1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Here he stopped. He did not read the next line, which was, we would say, still part of the verse. He left out the words, and the day of vengeance of our God. After this, he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the minister and sat down to speak. In all this, he did not depart from the customary practice procedure. It was customary for a speaker to sit down when asked to give an address. But then the unexpected happened. Let's try to visualize it, if possible. The atmosphere in this likely crowded synagogue was surcharged with curiosity. Everyone in the audience wondered what their townsmen, about whom they had heard so many rumors, was going to say now. as to explaining the scriptures and applying the scriptures. He had just read. He had sat down. All their eyes were fixed on him. And then he spoke that first sentence of this, his first sermon. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Whatever else he spoke, Luke does not tell us, only the first sentence at this point, but it tells us so much, does not. First of all, about the eagerness of the Lord Jesus. This day, today, how Christ loved the scriptures, every word. It had come straight from God, from his mouth, and it was so precious to Christ. Notice that Christ did not go into details about the context, the background. because these words were so relevant, so applicable, so perfect. So there were no practical setups or relevant goings-on, not to say that there is never a place. for those ever, but notice the eagerness with which Christ presented the gospel as relevant to these people, to the masses, to the hearers, and to you and me today. If you think back to the ministry of Christ, reading it from the gospels, has it never struck you that his whole ministry was a ministry in which he got to the point very quickly. When he was 12 years old in the temple, wished he not that I must be about my father's business. He knew the value of time and the needs of people. He knew how to say something and to cut through all the extraneous, get to the point. Here it was this day, is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. No long drawn, lengthy sentences, hard to understand, liable to put people off to sleep, oratory calculated to impress. No, Christ was eager to connect truth with his hearers. Let us learn from this eagerness of Jesus Christ to reach people, to connect with them. to see truth, reach them, not by way of long detours. Or I just heard it driving to the seminary, Tony Evans, and I caught him and he says, well, I should get to my sermon. This has been a long introduction. Well, he says, gonna be short sermon. Not that as such, you see. But get to the point. Reach people. Connect with people. Think of Paul writing an epistle, I'm ready to preach the gospel in Rome also. And Paul did. He was ready, he did it. Remember him writing to Timothy, be instant in season, out of season. Don't let the trumpet have an uncertain, an unsteady sound. Or think of the prophet Isaiah, from which Christ is quoting here, but then not this chapter, but back in chapter 40, where the prophet said, lift up thy voice with strength. Say unto the cities of Judah, behold your God. Thy God reigneth. You know, if your and my eagerness in preaching dwindles, let's regain it by looking to this Savior, Jesus Christ, who said, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. So that's, first of all, his eagerness. And then secondly, the grace of the Savior. Just think of that the Lord Jesus was preaching for the first time. What did he do? He opened his mouth to proclaim the gospel. Remember Psalm 42, verse 2 says, grace is poured into thy lips. Indeed, here grace is pouring forth from his lips, precious grace. Why? Because the time to favor Zion has come, as Psalm 102 puts it. It's not for the rich that Christ has come. Not for the righteous, but for the poor. The gospel is for those who have nothing. The Greek word is ptohos, the word really for being so poor that the only way you can go is beg. That's the basic sense here. You'll find it also used in the scripture speaking about the poor in spirit, same word. He's so poor. that he can only live of what's given him. And that's what's meant here. Jesus seeks those poor who are beggars. As mentioned, Jesus had left that one clause from Isaiah chapter 61, the words, and to preach or proclaim the day of vengeance of our God. Jesus knew that God had not sent him now to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Indeed, the second coming of Christ will be different. But now here in Nazareth, it was not Judgment Day, but Jubilee Day. In the gospel ministry, you and I need to be possessed by this grace of God. so as to, in our ministry, to have a heart for the brokenhearted, for the blind, the bruised, the captives, the poor. Indeed, we need to seek them. And there are many others in the grip of some form of alcohol or other addiction or anger, or many in the grip of money You know, we can have the name of Christians and yet be so bound by sin and Satan that we cannot rescue ourselves. We can have good eyesight and yet be blind. We can walk on the wrong way that ends in ruin and not be aware of it. And such there are, young and old people, with their eyes open, walking on a pathway of which the Bible says it will lead in utter darkness and destruction. And we meet them in our ministry, don't we, those who feel so depressed and so dejected, at the point of despair, What are they? They are the poor. Open the Scriptures that they may become beggars for the compassion of Christ. Well, Jesus passes by the rich. the righteous who can save themselves but in grace he seeks beggars who cry for help he's come to seek and to save the lost and at this point that saving is especially that spiritual salvation not in first instance the removal of physical and social needs Above all, it is the salvation of soul from sin, from Satan, unto God, unto the path of life. Comfort in sorrow. But notice, and that's the end of the second point, the superabounding grace of Christ. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And then thirdly, hear the authority of the Savior. Hundreds of years before this day, Isaiah had prophesied the coming of the Messiah and bringing the messianic day that would dawn with his coming. Isaiah had spoken of the joy that that day would bring But whatever joy Isaiah may have had in prophesying his coming in that day, Christ had all the greater joy in presenting himself as the one who is the Messiah. It's like the Old Testament priest, you might say, happily blowing the ram's horn at the dawn of the first year of Jubilee. So Christ here in the synagogue is sitting down and He is blowing the trumpet of the Word. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. He has the Spirit who has anointed Him to do this very work. And he is saying, this day has come. I am the Messiah, for the Spirit of God is resting on me. You see Christ having more authority than those priests blowing the trumpets of the year of jubilee. Now the shadows are done with. The year of jubilee has dawned. What has happened then? The acceptable year of the Lord has come. And this authority is still what we need when we are sent out as ambassadors of the gospel to proclaim that God in Christ has provided a redemption for sinners. That's the authority that we are in need of very much. and that we need to crave to be given that authority in our ministry, so that it will be a spirit-anointed, a spirit-blessed ministry, bringing out, leading to conversions and a life of holiness. So that thirdly, the authority of the Savior, but then fourthly, the gladness of the Savior. Can you imagine the gladness there must have been in the heart of Jesus at this moment when he announced the fulfillment of this scripture? Remember that in John's gospel, we hear the Lord Jesus say, on the night of his betrayal, my joy no man taketh from me. And certainly, this was part of it. What greater joy can there be than announcing the fulfillment of Scripture, the gospel of free grace for sinners? Jesus had this in his heart already from eternity past. And now he could speak it from the seat there as it were behind the pulpit in the synagogue in Nazareth to lost sons and daughters of Adam. What a joy it must have given him. Just as it needs to be and it may be in the heart of anyone in the ministry of the Lord, constrained by what? By the joy of the Lord, by the love of Christ to preach the gospel to the poor, to preach liberty to the captives and the opening of the eyes to the blind. Who is he sitting here in the synagogue of Nazareth? He's the king of Psalm 72. He shall judge the poor of the people. He shall save the children of the needy. You see this here in the Scriptures? The Messiah has come. The acceptable year of jubilee has come. Here is salvation, deliverance. Consolation, He has come to raise up and to give them life. There is salvation for beggars. Now, does this gladness, brothers and sisters, possess your heart? You will need it in the ministry. So that when you minister, you are sent by Him to preach his word that he came to fulfill and did fulfill. And there is salvation. There is everything in him, in his word. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Share it with others. And then fifthly, notice the glory of Christ. I say notice, I should say hear the glory of Christ. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Christ was sent by God, anointed by the Holy Spirit to perform his messianic work there among them and today among us. and wherever else in the ministry in this world. Christ here is presenting himself as the fulfillment of God's written word. It had all been waiting for and pointing to him and his coming. And he says, it's fulfilled in me. All God's persons, all God's promises, all God's words come together in me. And for any of us to say this of ourselves would be the height of pride and arrogance. But this is Christ. And when Christ sends you and me into ministry of his word. than it is to be a ministry in which we exalt Christ, the glory of Christ. We do not preach ourselves, hopefully, but Jesus Christ and him crucified. What we need in our ministry is that Christ himself comes through his word and spirit and show his glory as he says here, I'm here. And when that doesn't happen, then we miss the sum of righteousness. And when he's not there, then our ministry may be in a nice black suit and the proper shirt and tie, but then it's form, but no power. But when he's there, his scripture is fulfilled, and then your hearts are filled. When the word of God that was made flesh comes through his ambassadors today, through the words of the Scriptures, then those words are fulfilled because He is the glory, the radiance of the Scriptures. And notice how this glory comes in such an unassuming form who was sitting there in that seat, Christ, fairer than the sons of men. But that was not obvious to the people in the synagogue there because they only looked with physical eyes and they heard only with outer ears. And thus they were offended because this glory did not suit their preconceived notions and their plans. but to the ears of faith. It's glory to hear Christ say, today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears. It's a glory that is greater than that of the sun in its noonday shining. Because for Christ, for him to say, this day is the scripture fulfilled, this scripture in your ears, is not arrogance or pride. It would be a lie for Christ not to say it, because he cannot deny himself. And neither is it a problem for Christ to say it today through the preaching of his ambassadors. Where is Christ now? In heaven at the right hand of his Father. at the right hand of the majesty on high. His glory there is greater than in the synagogue in Nazareth, and greater than the sun shining at the noonday hour. And he comes through his word in every land, in every nation, by his word. And you and I in the ministry What did Christ say? Let your light, which is his light, so shine among men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father, which is in heaven. So that fifthly, but then finally. hear the call of the Savior. Because this statement, this day, is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. This statement is a call, an implicit call, to believe on Him and His word. And notice that the Lord Jesus says, today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears. Isn't that remarkable? Why did he not say before your eyes? But that's not what he said. Why not? Well, it's fulfillment of scripture. that has come and that has come and that's fulfilled in Christ and that is preached and that's why he says is fulfilled in your ears not before your eyes pay attention to the words of Isaiah 61 where there is an emphasis on preaching three times in that little part that Jesus read there. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to preach deliverance to the captives, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Now, one day, Christ will come with the clouds. Then this scripture will be fulfilled before our eyes if we are still here. And it will be seen indeed. But here he says, to your ears. How remarkable. And therefore if anyone here is poor, and needs help, redemption, hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a most remarkable thing, brothers and sisters. It means that faith is the important thing for all of us because only faith hears. God's salvation is presented in the form of a word of prophecy fulfilled here. So it's brought in words and it can be received only by faith. And those words are not vain or empty, but come with power. in those who receive those words. Remember Paul's words to the church in Rome, that the gospel is the power of God to everyone that believe, to the Jew first, but also to the Greek. and it comforts, it sets free, it raises up a person, it draws a person away from sinful ways, and it directs our feet on the way of peace. And when the fulfilled words of Christ are heard and believed, there the power of God is at work, and there the joy of the gospel is born. It's the beginning. At the end, there shall be the perfect redemption, also of the body. And then there is something to be seen indeed. Your eyes shall behold Him in His glory. And then to be with Him. Well, here is Jesus' first sermon, brothers and sisters. Remember, He preached it. That was it. Oh, sometimes He healed also the sick. Sometimes He multiplied bread and fish. Sometimes during his ministry, others who were sick remained sick. Others who were blind remained blind. Others who were hungry remained hungry. And today too, the Lord comes to us and he gives us a cross to bear. the fulfillment of his word is in our ears. And in part, it's a provisional part, you might say, before our eyes. But what is given as a provisional part, indeed, is a sign of the gospel, but the word brings full salvation, which is experienced in faith. The deed of Christ, as he showed, was provisional, I repeat, but that was not the redemption. It was a sign only of the redemption. But this is how Christ worked, this is how Christ is working still today. Is it sufficient for you? He calls you to believe his word and he gives you this for preaching. Have you sometimes thought, wouldn't it be nice if we preachers would also be able to raise the sick and give sight to the blind? Would you like that? What is easier, to preach or to heal or to give sight? Think about it. I've noticed in the ministry, especially in a pastoral situation, that sometimes one word is enough. I remember a situation of a profound theologian who was on his deathbed and he had lost everything. And he was in such poverty, spiritually speaking. And he expressed that it was like a sermon on his poverty. And then I said to him, would you like me to read? And I took his little Bible. And he says, you pick. I have nothing. And I opened his Bible. And the first page is when he's blank, but was packed full with Bible verses. And I read the first verse. And he said, that's what I need. And he was given it back in fullness to his ears, but he felt it in his heart. And remember that that word has been fulfilled and is being fulfilled in Christ Jesus. One day there will be seeing Jesus to those that believe or others will see him too as he is and will be cast out. But today is the gospel day. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. That's how Christ brought the gospel. That's how you must bring the gospel with eagerness, with grace, with authority, with gladness, with glory, with the call of the gospel. Amen. Let us pray. O blessed Lord, how we ourselves need to have our ears opened. Grant that that be the privilege during our years of study here. But grant that we may have open ears as we go out to preach thy word. and to recognize that it is the power of thine for everyone that believes. Oh, grant us that faith. Grant that we may grow in that faith, and that even when we sense we have nothing but the ear of faith, that in that hearing thou dost give all, and shalt also fulfill it, but here to live by faith, not by sight. But that day is coming. O do thou come, Maranatha, come quickly, and grant each of us here to be anointed by thy Holy Spirit, and in ministry to be such bearers of the gospel, to preach it after thee, Lord Jesus, and then to recognize thou must increase and we decrease for thy name's sake. In Jesus,