Our text, as has been read this morning, is from Luke chapter 14, verses 14 through really the first half, or all but the last sentence of verse 23. I don't really know why that last sentence of verse 22 was not placed as the first sentence of verse 23. We're not getting into those semantics. It's really not that important. I feel like that does kind of change the direction of the conversation. And at first, as the Lord continues to lead us into this Gospel of Luke, I thought that we would be speaking on and handling the entire scene here at Nazareth, which is an incredible scene. But as the Lord honed in my study, and as I prayed and considered the thought that He would have me to bring to you today, it is from this first part of this story. So we interrupt it knowingly and admittedly in the middle. that there is this incredible scene of the people of his own hometown in Nazareth seeking to throw him off a cliff. And we might, if the Lord wills it, we'll perhaps deal with that in a later sermon. But today we want to speak about this incredible moment where Jesus acknowledges and testifies that He is the Messiah. Some have attempted to say that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and certainly such an opinion does not stand next to Scripture. But I would like to speak to you today about the preaching of Jesus. That will be our title, The Preaching of Jesus. And I want to read from Isaiah chapter 61, which is what the Lord is quoting in Luke. This is a text that the people gathered there in the temple, or in the synagogue, I should say, on that day would have been familiar with and would have heard before. They knew the scripture that he was reading. But I would like to read to you that entire section. The prophet Isaiah says in speaking on behalf of the coming Messiah, the coming Christ, the Anointed One, says, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and I mark momentarily, you'll note that in Luke, that's where the Lord stopped. There's all kinds of opinions as to why, but He stopped by saying that He was to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. But the passage goes on and says, and the day of vengeance of our God. Well, the year of the Lord's favor was at hand and Jesus said, today you have seen this fulfilled. And only the first half of that statement could be said at that point because the day of vengeance is yet to come. But the day or the year of the Lord's favor had come. And so he proclaimed the year of the Lord's favor to comfort all who mourn, Isaiah goes on to say, to grant to those who mourn in Zion, to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit. that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. Jesus Christ lived doing nothing but good. That's all he ever did, was good. He did good things to those around him. He did nothing but good to everyone, preaching and teaching in ways that touched everyone, and he was killed for it. One would think that such a man would be celebrated and honored, wouldn't we? Isn't it amazing to think that Jesus, who did nothing but good, offered nothing but kindness. Even in His harsh words to the Pharisees, I believe they were given in the hopes that it might wake them up from their self-righteous slumber. I believe everything that Jesus did, He did with the intention to honor God and to bless men. Everything. Every word, every act. And He was killed for this. It's amazing. It's amazing to think about that. It's almost incredible. It's not what we would think would happen. We would think that men would honor Him. It's not the case with Jesus. On the last day of His earthly life, on the very last day of his life here on earth, he heard the crowd cry, crucify him. And he was handed over to what many have considered to be the most cruel way to execute a man that men have ever devised. This, for a man who did nothing but good, offered nothing but kindness, preached the truth, All that he did was to be of benefit to those around him, and yet that is what his reward for that life was. On this last day, he's betrayed, he's abandoned, beaten, mocked, he's alone, I believe on the cross He suffered an aloneness that no other man has ever felt. He's nailed there to the cross. His back ruined from the whip that had torn open much of the skin rubs against that rough wood. A crown of thorns digs into His head. The sound of jeers and mocking from the crowd and the soldiers gambling over his clothes come to his ears. The taste of sour wine is in his mouth, his parched, thirsty mouth. He is all the while refusing to call on the legions of angels that He knew at that moment could come and deliver Him from the agony that He was experiencing. And in all of this, Jesus, instead of calling upon God to rain down from heaven fire upon those responsible, He says, forgive. Let it never be said that we do not owe Christ our humble repentance. Let it never be said that we do not need His forgiveness, because certainly we do. Let us never merely moralize or make a metaphor of His life and death I would say to you today that the indifference that men have toward Jesus and what He did for us all will one day be revealed for the evil that it is. There is, I believe, no scene in all of human history more powerful than the scene of Christ on the cross. No scene. In every heroic effort and act of men and women through all the years of history, none of them hold a candle to the Son of Christ on the cross. Jesus on the cross is the pivotal point of all creation. It is the moment where man's sin was paid for in full by Christ as He alone took the wrath of God for each and every one of us. You and me your friends, your family, your co-workers, the stranger you meet with at the grocery store or on the street, and the billions that you will never meet in this life. On this day, Jesus paid for their sin. All of ours. This is the day. You know, there's a lot of things that divide men. Political opinions, economic, desires, all kinds of things divide us, but this is the day, the day Christ hung on the cross and what you see and believe in that or what you do not see and reject in it, this is the day that will divide men and women from one another for all of eternity. This day, But what led to that day? How did it come to that day? Well, certainly many things did. All the way back in the Garden of Eden as Adam and Eve fall from the law that God had given to them as free agents that God had given them and had for them to be to choose to serve Him. All the way back there as that first domino, we might say, fell when man fell from the law that God gave. But when we narrow our focus to the life of Christ, how did His life lead to that day? How could it? A man who did nothing but good to everyone around Him. How did His life come to that day? You might think I never would have treated Jesus in such a way. I beg to differ. How was it that Jesus ended on the cross? What was it about Him that so enraged the people that they asked for a criminal named Barabbas to be set free so that Jesus might go to the cross? How did this happen? And we might ask a more timely question. What has Jesus done that has caused you to reject him? I believe the answer to both of these questions is the same. And it's ironic. He told us the truth. That's why. That's why Jesus ended up on the cross. And that's why men and women reject him today. Because he has the audacity, the courage, and the love to tell us the truth. It has been said that the truth hurts and in no greater way is that demonstrated than in the truthfulness of the preaching of Christ. The immeasurable impact of Jesus' preaching is something that I believe is just about impossible to claim or to understand, to measure. It would be nearly impossible to overstate it. Even the unbeliever, I think, would have a difficult time denying the impact of the preaching of Jesus. Now, the preaching of Jesus landed him on that day rejected by men and crucified, yet That day and His preaching has had an impact down through the years, and the anticipation of the preaching that He would bring for the 4,000 years that preceded His coming had an impact even then. And again, I would say to you that even the unbeliever would have a difficult time denying the impact of Jesus' preaching while He was here in the world. They might deny that he was who he said he was and claimed to be, but the impact of his preaching and teaching simply cannot be denied by the honest observer and commenter. It's shaped almost all of the history, and we might say all of it in some indirect way, but it has directly shaped the history of the world. And this is true, and I want you to bear with me as we get into our remarks today. This statement that Jesus' teaching and his preaching had enormous historical impact, that is true, but it's more than just historical or societal. Jesus impact is not relegated to people long since dead. His impact extends beyond the mere academic or social or philosophical realm. It goes beyond that. It goes beyond the cultural realities that Jesus' teaching has impacted. His preaching impacts you and me today, whether or not you realize it. His preaching has changed your life and mine. You may disagree, but I want to wrestle with you with ideas that I want to present to you today about this. But whether or not you believe in Jesus and whether you realize it or not, what He taught has had a fundamental impact on your life. And it's going to have a fundamental impact on your eternity. What He taught. What He preached. I would go so far here to say that I don't believe there is anything that has had a larger impact on your life than what Jesus preached while He was here on earth. So today, let's look at what He preached. and ask ourselves all the while, how did it land Him? How did it end? At the cross. How did the things that he preached end with him on a cross rather than him being honored and celebrated? And no doubt, in some sense, he was. Even in our reading today, we see that the people responded positively to the gracious words that he was speaking. And sometimes people will respond positively to the message of the cross and the gospel until they come really down to terms with what it means. And we want to see that today. Jesus here, as I've said, was quoting from Isaiah chapter 61, particularly the first three verses. And what was his message? What was it that he was proclaiming? He says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim good news to the poor. That's where he started. Good news to the poor. That was the preaching of Christ. Good news to those who in this life are poor. I have never experienced poverty. Nowhere close to it. I've been near it and next to it, in the midst of it. And it is alarming the dehumanizing effect that poverty can have upon a person and a culture and an entire nation. Jesus came to give good news to those. I have good news for you. I have all that you need. You don't need to worry about the meal that's coming next. You don't have to worry about your children not being clothed because I am one who close the flowers of the field and watch over the sparrows in the air. And there's not one of them that falls that God the Father is not aware of. Jesus came and preached good news to those who are poor. And it ended in on a cross. Such a paradox, a juxtaposition of what we would think would happen, a reversal of what we would think would be the case. He preached good news to those who most needed it. He preached to them that you can possess all things in Christ. The Son of God has come to you. He desires to give to you the most important gift, which is more than food for the body or clothes for the body, but it is eternal salvation and hope in Him beyond this life. He came and He preached good news to the poor. He said that He has been sent to proclaim liberty to the captive. That's good news. How did it end? at the cross for a man preaching such things. I've come to set at liberty those of you who are captive. What a wonderful message, what an encouraging thought that Christ has come, the Messiah, the Anointed One. And it's important when you read here in Luke, when it says that He came in the power of the Holy Spirit, that is exactly what Isaiah said would happen as well. In the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ preached good news to the poor, and he preached, I can set you who are captive free. These are good things. In Luke, it goes on to say that he was giving sight to the blind, liberty to those who are oppressed. I ask you today, Which of these sermon ideas of Christ preaching merit a cross? Yet that's where he ended up. How? How can this be? The preaching of Christ is nothing but good news. The acts of Jesus were nothing but kind and benevolent and eternally focused to the good of man and the glory of God. You might think to yourself that I would never respond to such preaching in the way that ended Jesus on the cross. We're more civilized now. We would never do that to Jesus. And I might in some way even almost agree with you that, although I don't, but I would say that indeed in the Western mind we have a hard time thinking we could ever be so cruel But I would say to you today that you and I react to the preaching of Christ in much the same way as men always have. On the surface, they're very excited. Oh, you're going to set me free. You're going to give me sight. You're going to give me hope in my poverty. How did it end on the cross? And for some, for some, this preaching of Christ that they hear in their life, this proclamation of the good news of Christ. Though we might wonder how it can ever be rejected, in the lives of many it will be. And it will end in their eternal suffering and separation from God. How could it end there? Well, let's take it apart a little bit. And let's reason together, how can this be? And we ask the question, how would such preaching end up with Jesus being nailed to a cross? How can the gospel be rejected by men when it has the hope of heaven and eternal salvation and life as it was intended to be. How can this message ever be rejected? Have you ever been in a service or heard preaching that was empowered by the Holy Spirit of God, so powerful, so palpable, you could almost touch it and sense it, so real, and yet people walked away, unmoved, and unchanged, and have you ever wondered how can this be? It's a similar question of how can the preaching of Christ lead him to the cross of Calvary? How can it so offend that rather than accepting it and embracing him, they shun him and nail him to a tree? Here's the answer, at least as far as I can tell, for what that's worth or not. Men don't really like the truth. We need it and we seek it and we want it and we know that it is what we most need, but I don't know that we really like the truth as sinful people. You see, in order for you to appreciate that Christ came to preach good news to the poor, do you not have to know what it means to be poor? How can you know what good news is to the poor if you've never felt it? Man does not want to see or acknowledge his spiritual poverty and he's unwilling to stand before God and admit to it. Because at first it sounds good that Christ came to preach good news to the poor, but then when you really wrestle with that idea, you understand and you begin to see, oh, in order for me, what Jesus is saying is that I am poor, and that I am needy, And if there's anything that the Western cultures tried to drive out of us is this admission of our need of God. And when you don't feel poor, When you don't feel the poverty of spirit that is the reality of your spiritual condition, you won't respond positively to Christ preaching. You will reject it unwilling to admit the poverty that He came to proclaim good news for. And again, I think this is a particular challenge for those of us in the West. We think we have all we need. I know that that might seem odd to say, and you might say, no, I've never thought that. There's always more that I want. Oh, I didn't say that we think we have all we want. Surely that isn't true for the great majority, but I would say that it is true that in physical terms, in our natural life, Just about every one of us feels like we have all we need. Even if we struggle, we sense that we have what we need, I tell you, we don't. Not spiritually. Spiritually, we are beggars and we are poor and we must acknowledge that. And if we don't, we will not respond positively to Jesus' preaching. We're told that we ought to fill and to seek all of our wants and our needs, but if you are not poor, then Jesus bringing good news to the poor offends you. He doesn't bless you. Beyond that, man does not want to see or acknowledge his captivity. He cries out that he is free. while he is bound by the chains of his sin. We stand in rebellion against the preaching of Christ to set at liberty the captives. We're not willing to admit that we are bound by the chains of our own sin. This was the Pharisees' downfall. Their self-righteousness chained them and prevented them and held them captive. I believe that there have been many people all through the ages who have, even in well-intended action, been bound by good deeds of righteousness that we can do. We go to church, and we tithe, and we're good to other people, and we're kind to them, and we show love to them so far as we can. And we try to be good people. And when we're young, we try in our way to be good little boys and girls. And all the while, those good deeds, rather than bringing us to Christ for him to set us free from our sin, they wrap tighter. and tighter around us, thinking that if we just do good things, that we will be free. But I tell you today, that is not the preaching of Jesus. His preaching was this. I came to set at liberty the captive one. And for us to experience that and understand it and know it for ourselves, we must come to God through Christ in our chains and look at Him and say, no good deed can I do. Even if these chains loosen, and all the good deeds that I do, everything I touch, as you said, God, everything I touch, I make filthy with the rags of my sin, and there's no good deed that I can do, and I'm just chained by it. Do you feel chained by good deeds? That's what the Pharisees should have felt. That's what Jesus was trying to tell them. Jesus didn't come looking for those who were good little boys and girls. Jesus didn't come for the neatly dressed people that show up on a Sunday merely, and I'm not discouraging that, of course. He came to set the sinner free, and His preaching was to those who understood their captivity. But instead of rejoicing at the opportunity to be made free from sin, men rejected the premise of Jesus' preaching. Oh, I'm not a sinner. Not me. You're calling me a sinner? Jesus? This preaching of Jesus, which was so powerful and we know every time he spoke it touched hearts and know clearly in scripture and even no doubt things not recorded in scripture we know that many people came to him and his preaching hit the mark in their heart and they came to him and they heard his preaching and they rejoiced in him and yet for most in the world it seemed in his life this preaching of, I came to set you free, instead of rejoicing and exalting in the freedom that can be found in Christ, they rejected His premise that they were sinners at all. And there are so many people today going in and out of churches and doing good deeds and living lives that are good, here and there trying to be good people. They're just wrapping the chains of their sin around themselves tighter and tighter instead of listening to Jesus preaching where he says, I will set you free. I will. I will loose those bonds of sin that all you're struggling, all it does is tighten its grip. That's one of the reasons he went to the cross. They rejected him telling them that, well, I came to set the captive free. Men don't want to acknowledge it. unwilling to admit their sin. But listen, if you refuse to see your captivity to sin, Jesus' preaching of liberty from sin, instead of captivating you, it will offend you. It will. The preacher and the Christian trying to share the good news of Christ, that he wants to save you, will offend you because you're unwilling to admit you need to be saved at all. And you'll end up putting Christ on the cross. Jesus came, he said, to bring sight to the blind. Boy, we don't want to admit that either, do we? That we're blind? That we don't see? It's an inevitable confrontation with reality that you're headed for if you haven't gotten there yet. If you're still maybe young or you've lived a life of great ease, that we might say, and you've not run into this yet, you're going to find out that you can't see. The scientist, though, stands in blind pride, stating as facts things that science itself and the scientific method could never actually prove. But if you do not admit your blindness, well, Jesus' preaching of sight for the blind will offend you. It won't cause you to run to Him for healing. And we have a whole world of people refusing to acknowledge their blindness. And so they walk around blind, and we end up with the upside-down ideas that have so taken hold in our nation and in the world today. And when Jesus comes preaching saying, I came to give sight to the blind, those who would reject that say, I'm not blind, Jesus. Who are you to tell me that I'm blind? And boy, it is an uncounted multitude of people who have come into the house of the Lord and listened to a sermon given by a preacher doing his best to simply proclaim the goodness of Christ. It's an uncounted multitude of people who sit there and say, oh no, I'm not blind. I'm not captive. I'm not poor. And after a while, the reality of that does not make them rejoice or lean into the reality of it. They are instead offended and they send Christ to the cross in their hearts. We're also told that Jesus came to deliver us from the oppressor. Well, man is unwilling even to admit his own oppression at times by an unbelieving world, and he chooses instead to stand with the oppressors. But if you are unwilling to stand with Christ and face the world's oppression, you will be the oppressor from whom Jesus has come to deliver. I love how the text in Isaiah speaks, too, though, of what Jesus doesn't repeat. And some have speculated He had an Aramaic translation there in the synagogue that translated Isaiah differently. Whatever the reality of the nuance, it's clear He's quoting from Isaiah 61. And Isaiah 61, did you hear it said that He came to heal the brokenhearted, to put those hearts back together? You know, I think you know. I do. I think you know your heart is broken. Jeremiah said it this way, man's heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? It's just broken. Broken hearts and broken minds. But Jesus' preaching came to put those hearts back together. And though man intuitively knows his heart is broken, he denies it to men and to God. You say, what do you mean by that? How do men deny this preaching of Christ where he says that I came to mend the brokenhearted? Well, we do it all the time. We say everything's fine. I'm okay, everything's fine. For me, I'm good. My heart's not broken. Unwilling to admit it. Unwilling to wrestle with it. Unwilling to say no. My heart is broken over my sin. It weighs me down every day. It's with me as I fall asleep. It's with me moments after I awake. My heart is broken and the preaching of Christ is, I came to mend it, to fix it. But instead of embracing that preaching, they put him on a cross. We don't want to deal with the broken heart that is in us. We don't want to admit that it's broken. We say everything is fine. All is well. Yet, in every one of us, each of us, all of us, every man knows the dark secrets and the horrible things that lurk there. We know it. We think others don't, but they do because they have a heart like yours. And certainly Jesus knows, God knows, all of those desperately wicked things that you've entertained there. A man who is unwilling to bring his broken heart to God will be offended at Jesus' preaching and will stand with the crowd and cry crucify instead of kneeling before him and asking God to mend his broken heart. It's incredible, but it's true. You know, this hits very close to home. God has shown me what I think so many others know intuitively maybe. Do you know what we do with Jesus preaching? Do you know what we do with the thing, I think intuitively we know that what Jesus has for us is what we most need. I think there is a level of the human being created in the image of God that knows that. But you know what we end up doing? We end up rejecting the very thing we've sought. Because we don't want to acknowledge how much we need it. We push away the truth instead of embracing it and drawing it near. We push away others instead of embracing them, drawing them near. because of a fear, because of a pride, because of sin, because we're broken. Jesus' preaching came to mend all of that. He came to put it all back together. He came to open our eyes so we could see. He came to fix our hearts so that we can love and be loved. He came to set us free from the things that bind us. He came to give us life when all we know is death. But we reject that. And in a manner of speaking, we put Christ Right there on the cross. And I would say to you today that there is hope though, because on that cross, he did not call for fire, but he called for forgiveness. For you and for me. The preaching of Jesus, and I want to close with this if I can. The preaching of Jesus is going to be met with humility or hostility. Humility or hostility, ultimately. You will not be an exception to this rule. You will bow in humility or you will stand in hostility. And one day, I warn you, not to threaten you, not to berate you, but to tell you the truth, that you might stand in your hostility now, but one day you'll bow in your hostility. And you'll call on these mountains and hills and rocks and whatever you can hide behind, but there'll be nothing. And I think in a moment you'll wonder, why? Why did I respond to Jesus' preaching as I did? You will hear Jesus preaching and you will either humble yourself or you will harden yourself. And you'll do that, by the way, not only to Him but to those who speak to you about Him. This is why Jesus' preaching put him on a cross, because of what man does with the truth. His preaching, though it should bring hope from hopelessness and life from lifelessness, instead of that it offended them. They refused to acknowledge their need of God and they killed the very Son of God who had come to save them. The preaching of Jesus is a message of hope, freedom, peace, understanding, love, and life, but only to those who recognize their need of all of these things, and that without Him they have none of it. The preaching of Jesus, it is the most substantive, objective reality and impact on your life that exists. It is the preaching of Jesus. The question is not the veracity and the truth of what He said. The question is whether or not we will admit that what He said is true and acknowledge it and come to Him in humility You think you'd never treat Jesus as He was treated when all of us did. When I was 11 years old and God saved me, I understood in that moment that I was lost and that I was a sinner. That there was justice to be found in my eternal destruction because of my sin against God. I could not have articulated at that time, some four decades ago, the things that I hope I can now. And not that it makes me more saved or better, but I'm able to rejoice in deeper thoughts and things that I can now see that I couldn't then. But in that moment, I knew that I was lost. I knew that I was blind. I knew that I was bound by sin. I knew that I was not good. I knew that without Christ, I was a sinful, wretched, blind beggar. He called me to Him, and in repenting of my sin and placing my trust in Jesus Christ, I found peace with God. And that's my hope. That's my hope now, and it's my hope in eternity. I thought last night, for whatever reason, that I am likely And I don't know how long this stage will last, but I am likely at the beginning of the end of my life. I'm at the beginning of those final years, a couple decades. If they're anything like the early years and the middle years, they're going to go by very, very rapidly. They're going to be gone like the wind, like a vapor. I want you to know Christ. I don't want anything more than that. I want you to know Him. I want you to love Him, and I want you to serve Him, and I want you to follow Him wherever He leads you.