What Jesus Did – Part 1
Jesus is our model for life and ministry. I want to spend a few weeks talking about what Jesus did, and how His life and ministry model the way we are to live. We will call this series “What Jesus Did”.
After Jesus is baptized, (which He models for us, Jesus was dedicated as a baby and baptized as an adult), for about a year, Jesus goes around healing, doing miracles, teaching. After a year of very successful ministry He goes to his hometown in Nazareth. The people have heard about all the things He has done in Jerusalem and all over Israel is coming back and He is going to go to His own synagogue.
That’s where we pick up the story in Luke 4. It says
Luke 4:14-16 (NIV)
14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. 16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read.
Jesus went to church every week.
Jesus is at His home synagogue and He is the guest speaker. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah – Isaiah is a book in the Old Testament – was handed to him. Unrolling it, Jesus goes to chapter 61:1-2 and reads a prophecy saying the Messiah, the Savior of the world, is coming one day. It had been written hundreds of years earlier. This event continues in Luke 4:17-19
Luke 4:17-19 (NIV)
17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
He says the Messiah is coming to do five things. Then it says
Luke 4:20a (NIV)
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down.
Why did he sit down? Because in those days the teachers sat down and everybody in worship stood while he taught. Sometimes people ask me why I sit when I preach. I show them this verse and then I ask them the same question.
Jesus rolls up the scroll. He sits down. The verse goes on:
Luke 4:20-21 (NIV)
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Try and imagine the shock that runs through the synagogue. He stands up and reads the most popular passage about the coming of the Messiah, and them He sits down and says, “That’s Me”!
What I want to do today is talk about the types of people Jesus came to help. Then, next week we will talk about what He did to help them and we will then look at how He wants us to do the same. He modeled life and ministry for us.
1. The poor.
There are actually different types of poverty.
Material poverty. Lack of money.
Moral poverty. Lack of Integrity.
Spiritual poverty. Lack of Jesus in your life.
2. The brokenhearted.
The phrase “broken heart,” comes from the Bible. In Psalm 69:20 where David says this “Scorn has broken my heart.” That’s the first use of the idea “broken heart.” It comes from the Bible.
What causes broken hearts? Let me give you a few examples.
Disappointment.
Rejection.
Resentment.
3. The imprisoned.
There are a lot of types of prisons including actual jails and prisons, but here are a few more.
Addictions
Secrets
Fear
4. The blind.
Physical
Relational
Spiritual
Closing our eyes to the goodness of God. Not realizing our need for a Savior.
5. The oppressed.
Political oppression.
Political oppression is real. Around the world there are over 35 million people living in refugee camps because they have been politically oppressed.
Cultural Oppression
Right now in the world there are twenty-seven million people living as slaves. There are more people enslaved today than there were a hundred fifty years ago in the Civil War. The number one cause of this slavery is sex trade. This is happening because of cultural oppression. Cultural oppression doesn’t come from the government. But it comes from the cultures that we live in.
Spiritual oppression
What is spiritual oppression? When you feel pressured, when you feel oppressed, when you feel pressed on, when you feel stressed out, you’re at the end of your rope, you’re ready to throw in the towel, you want to give it all up, you’re ready to hang it up, you’re ready to chuck it all – that’s called spiritual oppression.
Jesus said these are the kind of people that I came for.
The last phrase on the outline is “The Year of Jubilee”. I want to close by talking about this for a minute. The year of Jubilee or the Lord’s favor is a law that God created in the nation of Israel.
Every seven days take a day off. Sabbath.
Every seven years, take a Sabbath year to give the land a break.
After every seven sabbatical years (7 x 7 = 49 years) so the fiftieth year have a year of Jubilee.
In the Year of Jubilee four things were supposed to happen:
1. Every debt completely canceled
2. Every one in debtors prison is set free
3. Every indentured servant is let go
4. All land returns to its original owner.
Why did God make up this year of the Lord’s favor for Israel?
So they would never forget what God had done for them. They were slaves and God had set them free and He wanted them to do that for others. They had no land and so he gave them land and wanted them to remember what that was like.
He also wanted people to realize that you don’t really own anything. It’s all on loan to you. You didn’t bring anything into this world. You’re not taking anything out of this world. What you have right now is not really your stuff. It’s just on loan to you from God for whatever your life span is.
Perhaps even more interesting, is that we can’t find evidence of Israel ever obeying the Year of Jubilee.
This refusal which is brought on by selfishness is one of the reasons that Israel ended up in slavery again at the hands of the Babylonians. While they were in captivity in Babylon Isaiah writes the passage we started the message with. God is going to send a Savior, the Messiah will come and He’s going to preach good news to the poor and he’s going to heal the brokenhearted and he’s going to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind and he’s going to release the oppressed and he’s going to forgive all of the debts and all of your sins just like the Year of Jubilee was supposed to.”
That was the passage that Jesus read in his hometown. He said the year of Jubilee when everybody’s sin is wiped out and everybody’s debt is wiped out and he said, That’s Me.
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