Looks like I guess everybody's good. So, Luke chapter 4 today, verses 16 through 30, in this message that I've called, The Mission of the Messiah. Luke chapter 4, verses 16 through 30, The Mission of the Messiah. You know, concerning Christ, we read in the Scriptures that He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him." And that's simply a sad summary of the overall outcome of the ministry and the mission of Jesus Christ. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. Well, what we have encapsulated there in those verses in John, we will see illustrated here in these verses in Luke. When we come to Luke chapter 4 and verse 16, Luke abandons the chronology for the time being in order to give us a basic summary of the entirety of the ministry of Jesus. Now we left off last time noting the relationship of Jesus to the person and the power of the Holy Spirit. We made mention of the fact that He was filled with the Spirit, that He was led by the Spirit, and that he walked in the power of the Spirit. But we need not think of Jesus as some sort of special exception as it pertains to one's relationship with the Holy Spirit. God desires that all believers everywhere, that all of these things be a working reality in every believer. He wants you to be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5.18, And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. You're to be led by the Spirit. Romans chapter 8, If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For here it is, as many as are led by the Spirit, are the sons or the children of God. And God desires that you walk in the power of the Spirit. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and to the end of the earth. And so you, as a child of God, are to be filled with the Spirit, you're to be led by the Spirit, and you're to walk in the power of the Spirit. Now in verses 14 and 15, we find that Jesus after he had been tempted, returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee. Now, Galilee was a relatively small region, but not lightly populated. A historian by the name of Josephus records that there were no less than 200 cities in the region of Galilee, all of which had 10,000 or more people in them. And so, what we have here is some two to three million people living in a sort of a demograph or a geograph of the size less than the state of Connecticut or less than Connecticut, and that's how two or three million people all kind of squeezed in this small area, that's how word could travel so fast among the whole region. It would just spread like wildfire. Look at verses 14 and 15. We see that then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and the news of him went out through all the surrounding regions. You see, it's just taken off. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. So up to this point, there was no organized opposition. to Jesus, things are seemingly on the upswing, the outlook is good, people are blown away by Him, they can't seem to get enough of Him, and understandably so. However, all of that is about to change. Now by the time we get to verse 16 of Luke chapter 4, Luke takes us about a year in to the public ministry of Jesus. Everything from John chapter 1 verse 19 through chapter 4 verse 45 has already taken place by the time we get to verse 16 of Luke chapter 4. Jesus has turned water into wine. That famous passage of John chapter 3 where he met with Nicodemus by night has taken place. He's met with the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman. All kinds of things have happened. Basically his fame is replete. His notoriety is abounding everywhere. And there's no doubt that the people of his hometown had heard all about him, and they were anxious to see him. I mean, it's finally like they had a hometown boy that put him on the map. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it's that hometown pride. This is one of their own. Up till this point in the book, throughout the Old Testament, you won't read of the village of Nazareth anywhere. Because it was insignificant. There was basically no reason to mention it. And so here they are coming out of obscurity into this renowned sense of, well, I mean, they're on the map. And I'm sure that they're excited to see Jesus. In verse 16 we see that he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. A couple of things here real quick. Synagogue, you know, we see the mention of the synagogue here, and historically the synagogue came into fruition during or in the midst of the Babylonian captivity, when Judah was taken and carried off into captivity into Babylon. Because unable to worship at the temple, they would establish local synagogues. And anywhere there were at least, the only rule basically was there had to be at least ten male Jews. And if there were ten, there could be, and most likely there would be, a synagogue whereby they would meet locally each Sabbath for some prayer, some worship, and a time of reading and explaining the Scriptures. But the part that I really want to point out or highlight here in verse 16 is this phrase, "...as His custom was." Jesus made it His habit to go to church, okay? Now, if there were ever anyone who didn't need to be there, or who really wouldn't learn anything from his time there, who probably wasn't impressed with the incredible insight of the local leader of the synagogue in the gathering, it was Jesus, right? I mean, now, there are lots of excuses that people offer up as to why they don't want to go to church today. You know, well, church is boring. Well, I don't get anything out of it. Well, you know, I've heard all of it before. I mean, he's always saying the same thing or whatever. But believe me, when I tell you that the local gathering of the synagogue, it wasn't exactly an emotionally stimulating kind of environment. I mean, you think everybody there was just, wow, this is electrifying. There was no electrifying environment anything like that, there was no, it wasn't in some way entertaining, or anything like that. Jesus wouldn't really get anything out of it. And trust me when I tell you that He had heard it all before. I mean, He wrote the book. And so, He could have argued that the religious system was corrupt. He could have said, man, that place is full of hypocrites. He didn't need to go to church to worship God. But instead, He went to church. Why? Well, number one, because it honors God. And number two, because there is an essential need for the body of Christ to gather collectively with consistency, Hebrews chapter 10. Check it out on your own. And Jesus knew that, and he gave us then an example in that. You know, he was faithful, and really his faithfulness in church attendance pretty much blows buckshot in every excuse any one of us could ever come up with. Because excuses just don't hold water. He didn't say, hey man, I can worship God down at the seashore, I can worship God on the golf course, or I can worship God in the woods while I'm hunting, or on the lake while, you know, fishing, or whatever the case may be, he didn't do that. Why? Well, because the truth of the matter is that though those statements are true, you can. Can we just be honest? As a general rule, when I'm on the golf course, I'm not there to worship God, okay? I'm there to play golf. When I go to the lake, it's to enjoy the lake, not to get alone with and focus on worshiping God. You know, when I'm out in the woods hunting, I'm not generally on my knees praying. I'm, you know, I'm alert and looking for whatever it is I may be hunting for. And so when I come to church, I do so to worship God, to learn of God, to give of myself to God. I honor God when I gather with his body. That's what Jesus did. He gave us an example and he said, the things you've seen in me, you know, do likewise. OK. During that day, it wasn't uncommon to give place to a learned visitor, we might call them a guest speaker, to share in the synagogue. And Jesus, in Nazareth, was that guest at this time. Now, as I mentioned earlier, they had all undoubtedly heard about what had been happening in his life. They were all excited to hear their hometown boy bring the message now. Here they are, and we read in verse 17, And when he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah, And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And then he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him." That is, they were fastened to him. It was all eyes on Jesus. This is the same word that's used when Moses came down from the mountain and the people were just steadfastly gazing upon Moses, wanting to hear from him what he had received from God, ready to give to them, and all of these kinds of things. And so, here's Jesus, there's a kind of a, and I hesitate to use the word, but I think you'll understand, there's sort of a spellbinding kind of a something going on here. He's reading to them, they are locked on Him. He reads this passage, and they're glued. And so, He hands the scroll back to the attendant, and He has a seat. Now this is the common posture for that culture in that time and at that day for the teacher. That day, as a general rule, you know, after they would stand for the reading of the scripture, I'd have a seat, and as a general rule, the people would be standing, okay? So it was kind of an exact opposite of the way we do it today, which I'm kind of for going back to the old school. If you guys wanna stand up, I'll have a seat. But, you know, that was just a common custom. The teacher would sit down, And there they were, and they were looking at Him. They were eager to hear from Him. Now, it's interesting to reference the text that he was reading, because he read from the portion that would become the 61st chapter of the book of Isaiah, the first two verses. But he only read the first half of the second verse. He didn't finish reading the text. Verse 2 of Isaiah 61 says this, "...to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God, and to comfort all who mourn." But Jesus stopped reading after, "...to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." He did not say, "...and the day of vengeance of our God. Why? Well, because that's not why He was sent the first time. That part of the prophecy will be fulfilled on His second coming, not on His first. And so we have a comma there, and that comma embodies over 2,000 years of world history. He came to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the age of grace, if you will. The day of vengeance is still to come at His second coming. Now, it's drawn to our attention, at His second coming, it's drawn to our attention occasionally that the first time that Jesus came, it was as the Lamb of God in order to take away the sins of the world. But at His second coming, it will be as the Lion of the tribe of Judah in order to deal with or bring judgment on the unrepentant sinners of the world. Now, I can't stress it enough, it's absolutely critical that you receive the lamb rather than face the lion, okay? Now, Jesus begins reading from the scroll. And the portion from which he read was acknowledged by all, and rightly so, as a section of scripture that spoke of the Messiah, the anointed one who would come. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. And the me, in reference in the text, was the Christ, the Messiah. Now why? Why was the Spirit of the Lord upon him? Because he, notice, has anointed me, that is he has empowered and enabled me through the person of the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel to the poor. What we have here in this passage in front of us is the mission statement, if you will, of the Messiah. It is His M.O. It is His objective, His agenda here that we have. And six specific things are drawn to our attention with regard to the mission statement and agenda of the Messiah, number one, to preach the gospel to the poor. The poor? Yeah. Listen, there's a five-fold effect, or net effect, that sin has on all of humanity, on all of our lives as mankind. And Jesus came to deal with those things, and to make a way to be redeemed, and set free from those things. And the very first thing that we realize off this particular list is that sin impoverishes us. Maybe not materially, at least categorically as far as all of humanity is concerned, but definitely with regard to spiritually. Okay? Most definitely. Jesus said He came to preach the gospel, that is the good news, to the poor. Now, with regard to the gospel, that's a marked difference between the ministry of John the Baptist, his forerunner, and Jesus himself. John didn't really preach the gospel. He came to bring a message of repentance, that is to ready the people to receive the Messiah, to ready them for his appearing. Jesus brought the gospel, the good news to those who recognize their poverty of spirit. Now, in the Sermon on the Mountain, Matthew chapter 5, he said it like this, "'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'" Jesus came to give good news to the bankrupt of spirit, that is, those who recognize that they have nothing of any value, no means, nor merit by which they might obtain their own salvation. And it says that He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. I want you to notice, as you kind of survey or think through this list, the kind of people that Jesus was sent to minister to. The poor. the broken hearted, the enslaved, the oppressed and blind, those who realize that they have a need that's bigger than their ability to meet and they need help, they need someone to rescue them, to save them from this self-destructive direction that they've taken in life. A little later on, we'll read where he said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, And I haven't come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." Now, in reality, that's an invitation that extends to us all. Because apart from Christ, we're all bankrupt of spirit. We're all oppressed and brokenhearted. Oppression is that which takes place outwardly, and the brokenheartedness is that which takes place inwardly. You know, outwardly, apart from Christ, Life just makes no sense. We're not sure what the point of it is, why we're here. Life presses in on us with all of its afflictions and adversities. And then inwardly we're all empty and alone, sensing that there's got to be something more, but we're really not able to put our finger on it or find it. And Jesus is the great physician and He was sent to bring healing to your hurting and broken heart, you see. to proclaim liberty to the captives. That is, those who are enslaved and shackled by sin. Again, that's all of us outside of Christ. Having been born with a sin nature, we are born into slavery. It's only the one whom, that is slavery to sin, and it's only the one whom the Son makes free who will be free indeed. And Jesus came to bring liberty to those who are Sucked in and snared by sin. And to give recovery of sight to the blind. Now sin blinds us, doesn't it? Sin blinds humanity to the reality of who Jesus is and our need for Him. But Jesus removes those scales from our eyes so that we can see Him clearly, that we might no longer walk in the pathways of deception, thinking that we know what's best. The Bible says, there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Apart from Christ, we're all in the dark, you see. I think Paul the Apostle's life, who was Saul of Tarsus previously, prior to that, His life kind of illustrates that perfectly. You remember his testimony, there he was when he was on his way to Damascus to take more Christian prisoners and the Lord confronted him and that light shone on him and it knocked him off of his horse and he was blinded. I mean, there he was for a few days. He couldn't see a thing. But then when Ananias was sent to him, when Christ sent Ananias to him, you remember the Bible says something like scales fell off of his eyes so that he could see again. And that's a perfect portrait of all of us. We're blinded. We meet Christ. The scales fall from our eyes. And we can see again, Jesus brings us into the light. He shows us the more excellent way to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. In the book of Colossians, we read it like this. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. The acceptable year. of the Lord, a reference to the year of Jubilee. Now, to me, the very word Jubilee, because of where we live, and I think kind of in this podunk kind of part of the country, it takes on this kind of this hillbilly connotation, doesn't it? That's real Jubilee, you know, and we think of like some silver dollar city, you know, thing going on or something like that. And well, I mean, and the idea of celebration, you know, is there, but the hillbilly, not so much. You understand? This was something that, according to their law, took place. It was kind of a bicentennial happening. It happened every 50 years. And what would happen is that everyone would be released from any debt that they had, which to me, I'd love to go back to that too. That'd be an awesome thing. And then if you had slaves, they were set free. If all land would return to its original owners, It was just kind of a way to balance the economy and, you know, and make sure that nobody had a monopoly, you know, in that kind of a thing. Just wisdom, of course, it's the Word of God. But be that as it may, the idea here is that Christ came to set things in order and make things right where they had gone dreadfully wrong. Okay, where people were enslaved, where they were poverty stricken of spirit. And all of these illustrations that we see in the Old Testament are but foreshadows of the substance which is fulfilled in Christ. Okay? He's the application of those illustrations. Though they were real happenings, they also paint a picture for us to learn from, the Bible declares. Of course, these things have application in Christ personally, in that day presently, and throughout history prophetically. He was there to meet needs both practically and spiritually. And He would do all of the things that we're reading of here. He would do them very literally. He would open the eyes of the blind. He would bring healing to the hurting. His works would bear witness of the fact that He was the Messiah right there in their midst. One day, perhaps you recall, we'll see it a little later on in the Gospel of Luke, but maybe you can bring it. to mind that there was John the Baptist and he was in prison. He had been taken and put in prison because of the clear cut messages that he was bringing with regard to sin and the need of repentance and of course it reached the higher ups and they were saying blah blah. There he was in prison and he had been there for some time. And he was beginning to get a little bit restless and wonder why Jesus hadn't brought the deliverance that they had all Awaited. I mean, you remember there was John and he was there when he saw the Spirit descend upon Christ in the form like a dove and the heavens opened up and he heard the voice of God saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And he saw all of this stuff and he bore witness saying, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This is the Messiah. You can meet him right here and all of that. But now he's in jail. And he's been there for a while. And according to everybody's expectations, when Messiah made his way onto the scene, what was going to happen was, well, he would break the iron yoke of Rome and that iron boot and that heavy fist that was pressing down upon them. And he would begin to rule over and establish his kingdom right there at that time. And so, John, I mean, you know, it's like he'd been in prison for quite a while and he was beginning to get a little bit disillusioned. And he said, hey, and so he sent some of his disciples to to Jesus and said, hey, man. Are you the guy or what? I mean, why aren't you getting this show on the road? I'm I'm in prison, you know, and, you know, Jesus, when he heard the inquiry, he didn't answer them. At least not immediately. But instead, what he did was he commenced to, amongst the multitude who was there, he began to cure infirmities and afflictions. He began to deliver those who were demon-possessed. He opened the eyes of the blind among them. And then Jesus looked at them and he said, Now go and tell John what you see. that the blind see, that the lame leap, that lepers are cleansed, that the deaf hear, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And the idea there is that Jesus was doing the prophesied works of the Messiah. Who else was running around raising the dead? Who else was running around opening the eyes of the blind and making lepers clean, cleansing them, making them whole? You know, who else was running around healing the sick and all of that? And Jesus would point those things out to people and say, hey, if the works of God are not being done by me or through me, then feel free not to believe me. But if they are, then you should believe me even for the works' sake themselves." His works would bear witness of who he was, doing the messianic, prophesied, miraculous kind of happenings right there in their midst. Okay. Verse 20. Then he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Whoa, whoa. Now, granted, they were spellbound. They were locked in and focused on. And he sat down and he began to speak to them. And he said, Right here, right now. These words are being fulfilled in your hearing. There wasn't anyone expecting those words to come from his mouth. That's the clearest possible claim that this carpenter who had grown up in their neighborhood could make that he was in fact the promised Messiah for whom the nation had been waiting. Now I have no doubt that you could have heard a pin drop at that moment and sat there, and if you were a fly on that wall, you would have watched Jaws systematically begin to drop, you know, as the shock of what he had just said begin to settle in on them. Verse 22. And so all bore witness to him and marveled, notice, at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, isn't this Joseph's boy? I mean, the idea here is that initially the people were held in wonder. You know, and we've brought this up in times past, how it's good. Every now and then, you and I, we need to pause and just let the wonder The wonder of the word of God. And that's kind of what was happening. I mean, there was this initial sense of wonder as they just were listening to him speak these words. I mean, there was just this admiration and immediate approval of the words that he spoke. They were so full of grace. I mean, they'd never heard anyone speak like this before. And it was rocking their worlds, it was blowing their minds. But somewhere along the line, the admiration began to turn to antagonism. They began to question him on, you know, I mean, what gives him the authority to speak like this? I mean, isn't this Joseph's kid? I mean, we've seen this kid run around the neighborhood for years, and now, how could he be the Messiah? We know him. And Jesus, you know, Jesus kind of had a knack for sensing the pulse of the people. You know, I mean, it was Jesus. So he he kind of knew what was happening in your heart and he's sensing the kind of the what's going on here. and how the people are going in this direction that's kind of going, I don't know. I mean, the beginning, I mean, the intro to the message was incredible, but this is getting, I don't know. Verse 23. He begins to rebuke them. He says, you will surely say this proverb to me. Physician, heal yourself. Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do it here in your country. Well, basically, what he's saying here is that they're looking for some sort of verification, some kind of ratification. They're looking for his, well, they want him to flash the badge of his messianic credentials. They're saying, hey, what's up? We're hearing about all these miraculous things that you're doing up there in Capernaum. Listen, son, this is your hometown. I mean, how about a little hometown help here? What's going on? And the bottom line is, they're seeking a sign. They're asking him, this proverb, physician, heal yourself, is like a way in that day of saying, hey man, you need to live up to this. There's a lot of hype going on. Why don't you live up to it? And so they're asking him to live up to his hype. But Jesus, well you know, he wasn't there to entertain the crowd. He wasn't like an entertainer. He wouldn't jump through hoops to impress the people. He would be about his father's business, so basically, He told him, no. Look at verse 24. And then he said, assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. What's that? You've heard the phrase, familiarity breeds contempt. Jesus is saying, it's not gonna happen. I'm not gonna jump through your hoops in order to try and prove myself to you. And in essence, what he's doing is that he is warning them, saying, hey guys, be very careful here, because what's happening is like a rerun in your history. You see, they may have, you remember they, we noted, it was said, they handed him the scroll from the prophet Isaiah. And in that day, at that time, it's true, they looked up, they admired Isaiah. He was a prophet of God. And so they held him in high esteem. But though they may have admired him, their forefathers took him and put him in a hollowed out tree trunk and sawed him in half. And so, they have a history of not believing, therefore rejecting those whom God sends to them. And Jesus is trying to remind them of that. Now on top of that, often times when they would reject God's messengers, He would find those who would then receive His grace. And that message really set them off. Check it out, verse 25. But I tell you truly, Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens was shut up three years and six months. And there was a great famine throughout all the land, but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath in the region of Sidon to a woman who was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet. And none of them was cleansed except Naaman, the Syrian. You understand what's happening here? Jesus gives them two illustrations of two of the most powerful prophets that God ever sent or gave to the nation of Israel who were rejected by the Jews but received by Gentiles. Now I'm going to tell you that this flat out infuriated them. To think of the Jews, God's chosen covenant people, missing out on God's goodness, but Gentiles receiving His grace, this was an outrage. I mean just straight out, I'm not joking, we say it occasionally, I'm not joking when I tell you that they literally believed that the Gentiles were basically created for fuel for the fires of hell. And so to think of God's goodness bypassing them and going to the Gentiles, this is a slap in the face. And then for Jesus to use scripture to prove his point, well now this is insult to injury. It was like throwing fuel, you know, every now and then you have a little fire and you started it with gasoline or something, and just for fun, you know, I don't recommend it, but just for fun, you take the gas and you throw it on the fire, and thing just shoots up, it just fans into this enormous, momentarily out of control kind of a situation. Well, he says, hey, You know, he's throwing fuel on the fire, really, but in reality, he's just sharing with them what their own scriptures teach. He says, hey, there were all kinds of widows in the days of Elijah. You remember that time? Perhaps you recall it in your memory when there was that call for, hey, it will not rain except at my word, when he was dealing with Ahab. And for three and a half years, there was a drought. And of course, that leads to famine. But God's gracious provision didn't come to any of the widows who were in Israel, but rather God sent Elijah to a Gentile widow in Zarephath. God's provision didn't come to her because of law, because she was under the covenant. It was just by grace. 1 Kings chapter 17, you can read it on your own. Likewise, in the days of Elisha, there were all kinds of lepers in the nation of Israel. It wasn't like something unheard of. But none of them were cleansed. The one who was cleansed was a Syrian, a Gentile, by the name of Naaman. And it wasn't through obedience to the law, he didn't sacrifice anything. Man, it was just a sovereign move of God's grace. Sure, he had to believe the word, but it was grace through faith. God bypassed the unbelief of Israel and moved in grace toward those who would receive his goodness, namely the Gentiles, 2 Kings chapter five. So Jesus is saying a couple of things here. First of all, just because someone is sent from God, that's no guarantee that the people are going to receive him or believe him, okay? But that rejection doesn't say anything about the person God's sending, it says a whole lot about the people who won't receive him. Okay? He's also illustrating to them that it's not out of character for God to turn to Gentiles should the Jews harden themselves in unbelief and reject the one whom He sends to them. God desires everyone, all men everywhere, to be saved, not just the Jews. Now it's true He wanted to use the Jews to deliver the gospel to the Gentiles. But should they reject their Messiah, He will move sovereignly so as to bring His grace to the Gentiles who will receive it and be blessed by it." Well, here we are. And His words of grace, well now that was tolerable. But the word of rebuke and judgment, well now that simply was not. Notice verse 28. And so all those in the synagogue, When they heard these things, were filled with wrath, literally with rage, and rose up and thrust him out of the city. And they led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down over the cliff. And then passing through the midst of them, he went his way. Wow. Now, I don't know, this is coming out of some kind of miraculous means through which he just passed through the midst of them, or if there was just such chaos and pandemonium that he was able to navigate and they were, I don't know. I lean toward it was probably some sort of a miraculous, sort of a normal miracle in passing through them, if you want to call it normal. I mean, it wasn't like he, you know, I don't know. But the idea here is that throwing someone over the cliff was generally a precursor to stoning them. You know, they'd throw him 30 or 40 feet over this cliff to the earth below, and then, you know, if that didn't do it, or generally even if it did, they would continue, they would finish him off by then pelting or pummeling them with stones until they were dead. Augustine said it best, he said, they love the truth when it enlightens them, but they hate truth when it accuses them. And I think that that's not too different from the way things are today. You know, too many want gracious words. We're all about the gracious words. Love, acceptance, and forgiveness, and all of that. But we don't always take kindly to, well, the truth. You know? I want you to note, Jesus was filled with the Spirit. They were filled with rage, man. Something diametrically opposed, with wrath. They were all about, listen, listen, They were all about a comforting message, and they marveled at his gracious words. But they wanted nothing to do with a convicting message, OK? But this is the portrait that will make for the pattern of the rest of his ministry. Jesus would go to the Jews, they would reject Him, He'd tell them of the Gentile participation in the kingdom, and they'd want to kill Him. And basically, this will repeat until the time of the cross. You know, this isn't exactly the kind of response that most preachers are looking for at the end of their study. You know what I'm saying? It's like you give the message and the people try to kill you. That's not usually what you're looking for. I mean, as a general rule. But obviously Jesus isn't looking really to be too seeker-sensitive here. Some people today might say, look, Jesus, you need to learn how to tailor your message in a little bit better, you know, kind of more in a way that's a little more palatable to the people. I mean, this is kind of extreme here. But here's the deal, you guys. Exposing the truth of the human heart can be dangerous business. The gospel message is intense. in its raw form. It calls for a decision. And it's impossible to remain neutral. You can either accept Christ or you can reject him and be a part of the crowd that seeks to push him away. He's looking for the hurting, the downcast, the downtrodden. He wants to bring freedom to the oppressed. and wholeness to the one whose heart is broken. My encouragement to you, now is the acceptable time. Let Jesus have his way in your heart right here, right now, today. Let's pray. God, we're so thankful that you sent your only begotten son to pay the penalty of all of us who were poverty stricken and bankrupt of spirit. And you sent him to heal our broken hearts, to open our eyes and set us free from the chains of sin and death. And I pray that you would help us to learn of your heart of grace, that we might be more like you that we might, Lord, just be able to be used in greater ways by you. And may our hearts be open to you that you just might have your way in our heart right here, right now, today. And Father, I pray that if there's anyone here who's never surrendered their heart to you, that they would understand your desire for them today. And I just encourage you that while we're kind of in this prayer posture, You're wondering about all this. Maybe you're wondering what Jesus wants from you. I just want you to know that he wants your heart. Nothing more, but definitely nothing less, okay? He came to pay your debt, to set you free, to open your eyes, to give you life. God's already forgiven you of all your sin. It happened at the cross. But that forgiveness can only be accredited to you in Christ. So if Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart today, do yourself a favor. Open the door and let him in. Father, I want to pray for anyone that may be contemplating that decision, that even now, They might find themselves just folding before you, being undone before you, and ready to receive you. And I just encourage you that if you need Jesus to come into your life, just ask Him. Just ask Him. It's all He's waiting on. He won't force Himself upon you. But if you will invite Him, He will come into you, and He will make you new, and He will forgive you of your sin. He will fill you with His Spirit, and you'll never be the same. Your name will be put in His book of life. Father, I just pray that if there's anyone here kind of in that position, making that decision right now, that you would encourage them, you'd strengthen them in their resolve, to set their hearts to surrender to you and to lead their lives for you. We love you, God, and we thank you for your word to us today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.