Let's pray. Our Father, even in these readings this morning, I pray that we've been encouraged by the reminder of your faithfulness, your word to Israel, which has always been one of promise, one of integrity, one of surety. And even though the Israelites often didn't understand what you were getting at, and even though they were wayward in your hand and under your care and they didn't believe you and they strayed. And they looked all around them for remedy, for security in other gods, in other alliances. You remain faithful. You remain the Lord God of Israel who had covenanted to Abraham. that through him and his seed, all the families of the earth would be blessed. And through all of those centuries of Israel's failure and unbelief and waywardness, idolatry, you continued to promise that however desolate they would become, however much the land would be desolate, and they would suffer under the oppression of exile, that that would not be the last word. your faithful mercies to David would be upheld, your integrity with Abraham would be upheld. Israel would become Israel indeed. And through that renewal would come the blessing of their God flowing out to all the families of the earth. And Father, this is the lens through which Israel understood its own plight, its own calling, its own hope for the future. And it was into that perspective and that longing that Jesus was born. And I pray as we continue to consider these gospel accounts that we would be wearing that same pair of glasses. That we would see what it is that sadly the nation as a whole even missed the day of their visitation. but that you have given us eyes to see and ears to hear. And Father, may we be encouraged as those who have seen the faithfulness of our God fully accomplished in and through Jesus the Messiah. How much more ought we be a trusting and faithful people? How much ought we, much more than even Israel, to live in faith and faithfulness, trusting that our God's intent to sum up everything in Jesus our Lord will be accomplished. And what a privilege we have to be part of that, to be co-labors with your spirit in this work of gathering, in this work of healing, in this work of renewal. May we be faithful labors, faithful servants, servants in the one who is the great servant son, Jesus our Lord. So bless us and instruct us, build us up, we pray in his precious name, amen. Well, thus far in the gospels, we've seen that the gospel writers start right off introducing Jesus as the son of Abraham, the son of David. And I keep referring back to this issue of incarnation because ultimately that's the way in which the scriptures want incarnation to be understood. in terms of this is how the God of Israel has returned to Israel, how he's returned to Zion, how he has returned to do this work of renewal and healing and restoration in connection with this messianic servant. The God of Israel has taken up Israel's own life for the sake of Israel. And so I've titled this section, The Work of Incarnation, because the coming of the incarnate one, the birth of the incarnate one is unto this end. This is how Yahweh will do this work of restoration. So we saw the baptism of Jesus, the point where the spirit anointed him, and anointed him, identifying him as the Messiah, the faithful son of Yahweh, the well-pleasing son, And from that point, then Jesus is driven out into the wilderness. The spirit who anointed him as Messiah, Mashiach, now drives him into the wilderness for this testing of his sonship. This was the father's testing, proving out of the son. And Jesus comes out of the wilderness having been proven faithful in his own understanding. It was partly for his own sake that he would see that the father's assessment of him was indeed true. He was the faithful, well-pleasing son. So his baptism then shows both his solidarity with Israel, which was very important because he is taking up Israel's life and lot, but also as the faithful Israel. And that's what's proven out in the wilderness. He is the faithful Israelite, the faithful son of God. All the gospel writers deal with the baptism. The three synoptic writers dealt with this wilderness testing that we examined. And then they kind of go in different directions. They don't tell exactly the same story in exactly the same way, but they're all still telling the same fundamental story, which is that when Jesus comes out of the wilderness, having completed his time of testing, he begins to undertake this messianic mission of announcing the coming of the kingdom of God. You see in Mark's account, Mark's very succinct and concentrated in his gospel record, but he says when John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God. Saying what? The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe this gospel. That was his message. So he's going through the cities and the towns of Galilee and the synagogues of Galilee proclaiming that this time for the coming of the kingdom is now. My presence means that the kingdom of God is at hand. And I don't want to go down this path too far, but this idea of the gospel of the kingdom is so important, particularly because in our post-Reformation Western Christianity, we've turned the concept of the gospel into a personal salvation formula. Preaching the gospel means telling an individual person the steps for that individual person to get forgiven so that that person can go to heaven, a salvation formula. That's what it is to preach the gospel. Well, that really isn't the idea of the gospel, and we've seen that even in going through the Old Testament. But here, as we're in the gospel accounts, this gospel is the good news of the kingdom. Does it implicate personal salvation? Yes. But the issue is really that it's good news. The time that God has been promising is now at hand. Yahweh is indeed returning to Zion in order to liberate and to heal and to gather back and to restore. It's time for Israel to be restored and Yahweh again to take up his place in their midst, renew the covenant, bring forgiveness and cleansing. And then Israel can be about its work of ministering the knowledge of God to the families of the earth. That's what God had promised. That's what the kingdom was all about. That's what he said he was going to do. And so this isn't a personal salvation formula. That's not what the gospel is. But Jesus is taking up that messianic task of manifesting the kingdom, proclaiming the kingdom, doing the works of the kingdom. This is the good news that he's bringing to Israel. So in terms of this manifesting of the kingdom, again, you have Jesus coming out of the wilderness. He has overcome the satanic adversary, right? He has confronted and been confronted by the ruler of the world and has triumphed over him. And now he begins to proclaim the kingdom that he's soon to inaugurate. There hasn't yet been this absolute defeat of the kingdom of this world and the satanic adversary that's coming. But Jesus is saying the time is at hand. This is the time when God's going to win the victory. This is the time when the satanic overlord will be cast out. It's gonna reach its climax in the cross, but this is the message that he's proclaiming, and his wilderness testing was the beginning of that triumph, the beginning of that overcoming. So he's about to inaugurate the kingdom as Yahweh's anointed king, but he's announcing that that time has come. So his mission is announcing the in-breaking kingdom, demonstrating the kingdom's nature, power, and goal. This is what his words are about. This is what his works are about. This is what the miraculous signs are about. This is what the walking on the water and the silencing of the winds are about. It's not just him showing that he can do a bunch of supernatural stuff. These are affirmations of the power of the kingdom and ultimately what this is about. It will also involve confronting Israel's notions and expectations, we're gonna see some of that today, and challenging them to return to Yahweh and to enter this kingdom as true sons. So this first part then in manifesting the kingdom that I wanna consider today has to do with this thing of announcement and confrontation. As I said, all of the synoptic writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, have Jesus going through Galilee and proclaiming this kingdom and demonstrating it in relation to himself. And as he is moving through Galilee, teaching in the streets, teaching in the synagogues, eventually that leads him to Nazareth, his hometown. And there's a uniqueness in that ministration because this is the town where he grew up, where everyone knew him as a baby, as a little boy. he comes into Nazareth proclaiming this gospel of the kingdom. It seems when you take the three synoptic writers together that there were at least two times, and probably many more, it was his hometown that he grew up in, but an early appearance in Nazareth in which he is speaking to the people of Nazareth and then one also that comes later. The one we're gonna consider in Luke I think was an early one. Matthew also says in chapter four that when Jesus came out of the wilderness and went into Galilee, he was in Nazareth and then he left Nazareth and established his home base as it were in Capernaum. That was the center from which he did his Galilean ministry. So I think there were two main times when he was in Nazareth, and there's disagreement about all of that, but I'm gonna leave it at that. You can do your own reading in that regard. But all of the three synoptic writers mention specifically Jesus' rejection by the people of his hometown. And Luke provides to us the most detail. So Luke has us, and I'll read this passage in just a second. transitions immediately from Jesus' wilderness testing to his appearance in the Nazareth synagogue. Emphasizing the spirit who had anointed him as Messiah led him through the wilderness, now bringing him into his hometown. So let's just go ahead and read this passage at this point. This is Luke chapter four. I'll pick this up at verse 14. Note that verse 13 finishes off Luke's treatment of the wilderness testing. Verse 13 says, when the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. Now, if you go back to verse one of chapter four of Luke, Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan was led about by the spirit in the wilderness. So Luke records the spirit as descending on Jesus at his baptism, identifying him as the anointed one, the Spirit driving him into the wilderness, the Spirit caring for him and leading him through that 40 days in the wilderness, and now the Spirit taking him into Galilee, and he is now proclaiming and doing what he's doing in the power of the Spirit. So Luke has the Spirit at the center of this messianic work. But verse 14 then, Luke 4, And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through all the surrounding district. And he began teaching in the synagogues and was praised by all. And he came to Nazareth, which is in Galilee, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. And he opened the book and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he's anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, the Lord's Jubilee. And he closed the book 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 were speaking well of him and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from his lips. And they were saying, isn't this Joseph's son? This is the hometown boy. What are we to make of this? And he said to them, no doubt you will quote this proverb to me, physician, heal yourself. What we've heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well. And he said, truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown. But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land, great drought and famine. And yet 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 Elisha, the same period of time. Remember, Elisha took up the mantle from Elijah. Many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed but only Naaman the Syrian. And all in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things. And they rose up and cast him out of the city and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built in order to throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went his way." We've been to Nazareth and it does sit on a high place and there are cliffs around there. But this is the story I wanted to deal with today that Luke puts in as the very first thing following the baptism, the anointing as Mashiach, and the proving out of his sonship in the wilderness. Now he comes with that message to the people of his hometown. And I picked this context for this thing of manifesting the kingdom in terms of announcement and confrontation because I think Luke understood this. This becomes fundamental to the whole of Jesus' interaction with his nation and where this will ultimately end up for them. So the account is pretty straightforward in terms of just the simplicity of it. As Jesus is going around through Galilee, he comes into Nazareth and he goes into the synagogue on the Sabbath. And you can imagine when he comes walking into town, everybody notices it, right? And especially when he goes into the synagogue, he's the hometown boy. And Luke doesn't go into any great detail, but Jesus, the word of what he's been doing has been spreading around through Galilee. People in Nazareth have heard of what this son of Nazareth, our hometown boy, has been saying and doing. Astonishing things. Luke doesn't describe any miracles, but it comes out indirectly in his account here, because they say, what we've heard you've done in Capernaum, do here as well. Works of healing, works of restoration. So the news of what Jesus has been saying and doing has reached them in Nazareth, and now he shows up in town and goes into the synagogue. And when they would read on the Sabbath, it's typically in the readings in the synagogue, you would read from Torah, from the books of Moses, and then you would read from the prophets. And the prophets' reading was usually associated with the calendar, the circumstances. If it was a feast day or whatever it happened to be, a particular Sabbath. So there was a Torah reading, and then there was a Nevi'im, a prophet's reading. And whether this was an assigned reading or not specifically, they were obviously slated to read from Isaiah that day. These writings are in scrolls. If you've been in a Jewish synagogue, there are scrolls that they read from. It's not a book. And they take out the scrolls. They usually have three of them, the Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim, Law, Prophets, Writings. And so Jesus, obviously him being there and him and everybody going, wow, you know, we've heard all these things, hand it to him, let him read. It wasn't unusual to have a man in good standing, stand in the synagogue and be allowed to read. So Jesus has handed this scroll to read. Now, whether it was specifically this particular reading or not, Luke seems to indicate to me that Jesus found this and read this. I don't know, it's not all that important, But he picked this section from Isaiah and read it to them. Then he handed the scroll back to the attendant and sat down. And you can imagine there's probably a silence for a couple of minutes. And then he says, this day, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. In other words, he knows that they have heard all that he's been saying and doing, and they have a certain perspective on what he's doing. He's obviously acting as a prophet in some sense, and he seems to be some kind of a miracle worker. What's going on with this? Is God really working through him? There's a lot of talk and chatter, and people are going on and on about what could this possibly mean. And by reading that section and making that statement, he's saying, this is what all of this means. If you want to know what my words, my teaching and my works are all about, it's this. This is what the prophet was getting at. And Luke is careful to say that Jesus is doing this in the power of the spirit. And Jesus reads and says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to herald the good news. to proclaim the year of the Lord's Jubilee, the releasing of captivity. So that's what's happening, and that's the explanation that he gives to them. So the men, as I say in the notes, this is the bottom of 116, the men were exultant at this news of God's gracious favor, that's the idea. Luke says, you know, everybody was talking after Jesus said that, they're all praising him, and marveling, and they're celebratory, marveling at the NAS as the gracious words falling from his lips. It doesn't mean that he's speaking kindly and saying nice things to them. The idea is the words of God's grace. In other words, what he's doing is he's proclaiming, now is the time for God's gracious favor to come to Israel. They've been waiting for centuries for this time when Yahweh will arise and return. and he will heal and he will restore when his grace will again be poured out on his people. That's what they're getting at. And they're exalting, they're saying, could this be the time? Could this be the one? At last, God's grace is coming upon Israel, but Jesus knows and confronts their lack of understanding of how this graciousness is going to play out in terms of Israel itself. That's what's going on here. And that's what explains this strange response. They're praising him, they're lauding him, they're marveling at now this graciousness of God that's coming to them. And he says, no doubt you will quote this proverb to me, physician heal yourself. We're like, well, what does that mean? Why is he saying that? Well, he recognized that the enthusiastic reception he was receiving was due to this assembly's expectation of the blessings that were awaited them. If this is in fact the time, if this is going to be the time when God is going to arise and pour out these blessings that Isaiah promised, then those blessings will be coming to us. Liberation, healing, peace. That's what they're expecting. Surely, if he had been doing these signs of the kingdom, healings, Right? Liberating from demons, casting out demons. If he'd been doing these things in Capernaum and other surrounding towns, they could expect the same sort of blessings to come to them. They were his closest neighbors. They were the people he'd known from his childhood. Physician, heal yourself. What we've heard that you've done in Capernaum, do here in your hometown. That's what Jesus is speaking to is their expectation. But he answers in a way that not only deflates their expectation, it fills them with rage. In a minute, they go from praising him and lauding him and celebrating the graciousness of God that's connected with him to being enraged enough that they grab him and they haul him out of the city and they want to kill him. Well, what's going on with that? Why would that happen? Why would that happen? Well, obviously it's clear that he said something that upset them, right? His response upset them. But part of the reason I wanted to turn to this passage is because often I think the actual dynamic here is missed. And so we end up with speculation as to, okay, what was it that really got their goat? He tells them, you'll say to me, physician, heal yourself. Do the kind of stuff you've been doing elsewhere here. Bring these blessings to us. And he says, let me tell you a couple of stories here. Let me tell you about Elijah and let me tell you about Elisha. Well, when you see that, and these are some of the views that I've seen, people say, well, the issue was that they resented him for, in a sense, his disparaging attitude towards them. They expected that he was going to do these works there in his hometown with these homeboys, you know, the people that he grew up with. And he basically says, remember the time of Elijah. Remember the time of Elisha and how God's favor went out to these Gentiles. In other words, a prophet is not without honor except in his own country. There's no honor for me here. This is hypocritical, right? He's disparaging them and that made them angry. And related to that is the idea that he's expressing to them that their praise, their adoration is really disingenuous. All that they want is for him to do a bunch of miracles there. And that's what made them angry. The most common view that I found is that they were enraged because Jesus was denying their hope of special favor. They were fellow Nazarenes, and he's denying their expectation of special favor. Essentially, what he's saying is God shows no preference in his mercy and provision. He's not going to look on you with special favor just because you're Nazarenes and I was raised in Nazareth. Don't expect that he's going to show you any favoritism in that regard. And clearly, Jesus was exposing their unbelief, But that really isn't the issue here. It's a part of it, but it's not the real issue. He's making a much more profound point. And when we see this, we'll see why they were so infuriated. He wasn't just exposing their unbelief, but drawing out the significance of it. And not just as it pertained to them as a community, not just as the people of Nazareth, but as they were a microcosm of the Israelite nation. When Jesus said a prophet is not without honor except in his own country among his own people, he wasn't just talking about Nazareth. He was talking about what was ultimately going to be the reaction of his nation to him. He's just beginning his ministration, but he already knows what's coming. And remember John in his prologue to his gospel, his summary is he came to his own, but his own did not receive him. So this is a microcosm of what's coming. This isn't just about Nazareth. And this becomes clear from the examples that he cited. These weren't just arbitrary examples of, see, God doesn't have to show favoritism to you people of Nazareth. He can be, you know, he's sovereign. He can show his mercy to whoever he wants. That wasn't the point. This was a crucial time in Israel's history. And we saw this even as we've gone through the Old Testament. This was the time of Israel's decision. The time of Elijah and Elisha. Jesus himself mentioned, remember, God shut up the skies for three and a half years. No rain fell on Israel. It was a time of drought and famine. That was during the reign of Ahab. when Israel reached the low point of its apostasy, the northern kingdom. And finally, God sent Elijah to confront that, and it reached its climactic confrontation on Mount Carmel, where Elijah told Ahab, gather the prophets of Baal, the prophets of Asherah, and bring them to this mountain, and we're going to see who God actually is, who is the God, who actually is. And remember, he built the altar and the prophets of Baal, and they're cutting themselves and crying out for Baal. And finally, when they're all exhausted, then you have Elijah call upon the Lord, and he soaks the altar with water and the wood, and fire comes down and consumes the whole thing. And the people say, Yahweh, he's God, he's God. Yahweh is the God, is the true God. But what Elijah says to them is, God is not going to allow you anymore to hesitate between two paths. A lot of versions say two opinions, but the idea is two branches. You can't have this both ways. If Yahweh is God, serve him. If Baal is God, serve him. Baal was a fertility deity. And it was easy to look to him because you wanted the crops to come in and you wanted the animals to be fertile and you wanted the wombs to be fertile. You needed children. You needed this. And so your whole economic success depended on fertility in an agricultural setting. And Baal was said to be the one who controlled the rains as part of his lordship over the fertility processes. You need the rains, right? and God shuts up the rain, so he shows his power in the first instance, but it reaches this apex at Mount Carmel. This was a point of decision for the nation, and the people said, yes, Yahweh is God, we will serve him, but it was short-lived. And Jezebel says, you killed all my prophets, I'm gonna kill you. And remember Elijah flees? And he goes, and he's off, and he's in the wilderness, and he's just absolutely despondent. They've killed all your prophets. All of your holy men are gone. All the faithful have gone. I alone am left, and now they're seeking my life too, the people of Israel. And God says, no, I've reserved 7,000. I haven't bowed the knee to Baal. But the point is that this was the point of decision. And Israel said, yes, we will follow Yahweh once again, but they didn't. And shortly after this, the writing prophets, the prophets we have in the scripture start emerging. And those writing prophets all are uniform in their message. Desolation, exile, captivity are coming to both houses. The day of an opportunity to turn has passed. Now God still calls them to repentance, but he says, this is all going away. your day of decision has come and you have failed the test. That's what Jesus is pointing at. And he's saying specifically, if you look at the examples that he uses, he's saying when God, when this day of decision came, God turned his favor away from the people of Israel and it went to the Gentiles. There were many widows who were starving in Israel, and yet Elijah wasn't sent to any of them. He was sent to Sidon, present-day Lebanon, to a widow there, and he provided for her. Yahweh provided for her. And there were all kinds, and Elijah passed the mantle to Elisha, same period of time in Israel's history. And there were all kinds of lepers in Israel, but Naaman wasn't, or Elisha wasn't sent to heal any of the lepers in Israel, but to Naaman the Syrian. Once again, non-Israelites. That's what Jesus is pointing to. So Elijah and Elisha represented a crucial time of decision and the turning point in Israel's history. They failed that test. All that awaited them now was desolation and exile. But Yahweh had also appointed another day of decision for the nation, and he would send Elijah again to herald it. Look at Malachi 4. This is in the way we organize the Old Testament. This is God's final word before the silent centuries, before the coming of the Messiah. Malachi chapter four, verse one. Behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff. And the day that is coming will set them ablaze, says Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of heaven, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. This is alluded to in Zacharias's benediction, right, in Luke chapter 1, the rising of the sun of righteousness. And you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall, and you will tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the sole of your feet on the day which I am preparing, says the Lord. Remember the covenant, the law of Moses, my servant. Remember the covenant. Be faithful. Hold to my covenant. the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. For behold, I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. And he shall restore the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the land with the curse." God was going to send Elijah again. Elijah's been dead for a long time at this point. But God says, I'm going to send him. What was Elijah? The prophet who brought, confronted Israel at the point of decision. And the Israelites were all waiting for Elijah to return. That's why the disciples say to Jesus, if you're the Messiah, if this is the time, then why do the fathers, why does our teaching, why does the tradition say that Elijah must come first? And Jesus said, that is true, Elijah has come. John the Baptist. It wasn't the resurrecting of the man Elijah, it was Another prophet coming in the power and spirit of Elijah to confront the people with the day of decision. And that's what John did, right? Preparing the way for Yahweh. Do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. Bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance. The ax is laid at the root of the trees. This is the day of decision. That was John's ministration. He came as the Elijah. So the day of decision is again upon the people. As Elijah announced it, so God has brought Elijah, just as he said he would. To what end? To turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the children to the fathers. This isn't stuff for parenting seminars. This is about the sons of Abraham returning to Abraham. It's the bringing of the offspring back to the people. Remember the covenant, remember the covenant. the restoring of the Abrahamic people. Israel becoming Israel indeed. That's what this is about. That's what Elijah was calling them to do, return to the Lord. So Israel had failed its first day and the result was centuries of exile and oppression with an empty sanctuary. Yahweh's promised that he would return, but he didn't return. They rebuilt the temple and we've seen this, the temple remained empty. No Shekinah in the temple. Yahweh's promise, I will return, I will return. Well, now Elijah had come as promised, and Israel was faced with its supreme day of decision. Would the unfaithful nation embrace its God who'd returned to them in his messianic servant? Or would they miss the day of their visitation and see their house left desolate while Yahweh's mercy flowed out to the nations? Jesus indicated the latter. And that was why his hearers wanted him dead. This is very much at the center of Luke's presentation of the one who comes to his own, but they would not have him. And that rejection becomes the mechanism through which ultimately the mercy of God goes to the Gentiles, not apart from Israel whole cloth, but as Jesus produces a new Israel in himself. And we've talked about that a little too and we'll see more of that as we keep going on. But if you look at Luke 13 and with this I'll finish. You see this emphasis again in Jesus teaching. He came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and Israel was waiting for its Messiah and they understood they had a theology of the kingdom that said that God's righteous ones will inherit the kingdom. There will be some in Israel who will not enter the kingdom. It is his righteous ones that will inherit the kingdom. Well, if you are the Messiah, tell us about who will enter your kingdom. This is a passage that we tend to read in terms of how many people are gonna get saved in the way that we think about that, and that's not what is being addressed here at all. This is one of the passages I cite at the end, and you can look at these others as well. The last one is where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, and he said, if you had known the day of your visitation, but now it's hidden from your eyes. But Luke 13, verse 22, he was passing through from one city and village to another, teaching and proceeding on his way to Jerusalem. Luke has said he's already set himself towards this fateful day. He's heading towards Jerusalem. This is that final time. And someone said to him, Lord, are just a few being saved? This is an Israelite saying, how many? Who are these Israelites who will enter your kingdom? And what does this mean for your restoring of the household of Israel? And he said, strive to enter by the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and not be able. This is not all kinds of different ways of salvation. You need to believe in Jesus in the way we've been taught, the narrow door, the wide door, the path of destruction. But he is saying there is a narrow way into the kingdom, and it's not what you think. It is to me, I am the door, right? Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door saying, Lord, open to us, he will say, I don't know where you are from. But you will say, we ate and drank in your presence. You taught in our streets. We're your people. We're your people. We're the sons of Abraham. And he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, you evildoers. And there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth there when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves cast out. and they will come from east and west and from north and south and recline at table in the kingdom of God." This was Israel's hope. They would be sitting at the table in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fathers, the prophets, all of the righteous in Israel. And behold, some who are last will be first and some who are first will be last. You see this in Jesus' parables in Matthew as well. Remember the parable of the vineyard? The landowner lets, he leases out the vineyard to his servants to produce the fruit. And he sends his servants to collect the fruit and they keep killing them and driving them off. And he says, I'll send my son, surely they'll receive him. And the son comes, they say, this is the heir, let's kill him. Then all of this will be ours. And Jesus says to these listening to the parable, what should happen to those unfaithful the workers on the land, and he says, the guy should come and he should throw them out and kill them. And he says, I tell you, the kingdom will be taken from you and given to those who will bear the fruit of it. Jesus was constantly revealing to the sons of Israel, this is gonna be taken from you. This isn't gonna go well for you. You think that this is all about you. Oh, it's the time of blessing, the time of renewal. Remember, even Amos had said, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, be very careful. It's going to be a day of darkness and not light. Yes, I've come to restore Israel. Yes, I've come to pour out the Isianic blessings, but it's not going to look the way you think. This is going to be bound up in me. And if you miss this in me, you're going to miss it altogether. That's why they were enraged with him. It wasn't just that God could have mercy on the Gentiles. He'd always had mercy on the Gentiles as they came into Israel. But this was God turning from Israel to the Gentiles. And this will become more and more a part of Jesus' ministration. And even we'll see through the book of Acts that the outpouring of the Spirit ultimately takes the gospel to the nations in the face of Israel's unbelief. So the manifesting of the kingdom begins with announcement and confrontation. Here is the kingdom, but be very careful. Be very careful. You will miss it. You will miss it. Let me close then in prayer. Father, we might say, what does all of this have to do with us? We're not first century Israel. We're not characterized by their unbelief and their rejection. In fact, we might find ourselves astonished that a people who had such a longing for the coming of your kingdom, such a longing for your Messiah, such a longing to be released from their alienation, from the captivity of this continuing relational exile, they were longing for forgiveness. They were longing for the renewal of the covenant. They were longing for you to return and once again be in their midst and establish the kingdom that you had promised to Abraham and to David. How could they possibly miss it? Well, Father, we face the very same challenges today. We would have a kingdom and a king that meets our expectations. our sense of what blessing is, our sense of what liberation and provision and goodness and abundance looks like. We would have a Messiah that fits our designs. We would have a God who arises and returns to us based on our speculation, our interests. We would say, as they did in that synagogue in Nazareth that day, physician, heal yourself. We are your people. Come and meet our need and be here with us and do for us the things that we seek for you to do. Father, we can fall prey to the very same unbelief that characterized the people of Israel. Will we lay hold of our God and his Messiah in truth? Will we be a people who embrace your kingdom as it actually is? Who embrace you as you actually are? or will we too miss the day of visitation? I pray that you will help each one of us and that even as we give our own time and energies to learning this Messiah who's revealed to us in the gospels, that we would truly learn him as he is. That we would not invent a Jesus who is the avatar of our agenda. that we will know and love and bow our hearts and knees before the Christ who is Lord over all, and that we will be people who manifest that wise, loving, contradictory lordship in the world. Father, we need your forgiveness. We need your mercy. We need your renewing and transforming grace. Truly, we need to grow up in all things into Christ who is the head. It's not just a platitude that we say, it is truly the destiny for which you have called us. And to be conformed to Christ is what we seek, but it doesn't happen in a vacuum. And so deliver us from our speculation, deliver us from our folly, deliver us from our self-serving agendas and cause us to be a faithful people. that we will continue as this restored, renewed household of Abraham in the Messiah, to continue this work of bearing witness to the Messiah in all the earth, with the people with whom we have to do in our neighborhoods, in our jobs, in our families, in all of the interactions that we have. Father, may we be faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord, faithful witnesses of his kingdom, We ask these things in His name, amen.