22 Jan 1/24/21 Luke 4:14-21 “You Are the Real Winner!”
Every once in a while, Sharon and I have had the honor of going back to our old church. W
1/24/21 Luke 4:14-21 “You Are the Real Winner!”
ell, it isn’t really our old church because it is brand new. It was a church that we helped to start several years ago. It is Triumph West and it is a satellite church of Triumph in Moorhead. I remember when we had meetings in homes and meetings at the church in Moorhead. We targeted people under 40 as the group we wanted to reach. Our first worship service was in the Multi-Band Building on 45th Street in Fargo, which has now changed its name. We filled the meeting room where we met that first Sunday with about 100+ people. One of the most exciting things about doing all of this was letting the young people decide how they wanted to do church. Even a few years back when we did this, I was already one of the old guys. Anyway, these young people had some great ideas except for this one that I thought was crazy and had no place in worship. They decided that they would do about half of the service and then they would stop and have coffee and doughnuts for 10 minutes. As crazy as this sounds, it worked. As a matter of fact, it worked really well. People loved it and the church grew. Some of the children even called it the doughnut church. The moral of this story is ‘don’t listen to us old guys.’ Anyway, today’s Scripture is not unlike this. Jesus gets up in his church in his hometown and proclaims that He has fulfilled the Scripture for the Messiah. This would have been a pretty crazy thing to do but boy did it ever turn out right! Let’s see if we can find out what Jesus wants us to be doing even when things don’t look right to the world.
Has anybody watching ever been to a Chinese restaurant? Have you ever noticed that many of the decorations that they have are very similar to other Chinese restaurants? The one thing that I have noticed in some of them is that they have same placemats. They are kind of horoscope type mats that have all the different years on them. They have the year of the rat, the snake and the pig just to name a few. If you were born in a particular year, this mat will give you your personal traits and a little about your future. I, quite frankly, don’t believe any of this. But they are looking ahead to the future.
In this country we do just the opposite. We judge our years by what has taken place. For instance, Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492. We declared our freedom in 1776. The Civil War began in 1861, Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941 and we had the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. We mark our years by going back. Even though I don’t agree with how the Chinese do these things, I have to say that their looking ahead is a good thing because this is what Jesus is telling us today.
In verse 19 He tells us that we are to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and look forward to it. When we read something like this, we have a natural tendency to just keep on reading and maybe we will be able to figure out what the year of the Lord’s favor means. There is nothing wrong with this. Or we can do a little research. Or you can let the pastor do it in his sermon. Today we will opt for the last one.
Jesus is reading to his hometown synagogue on the Sabbath Day from the scroll of Isaiah. Isaiah is talking about the year of the Lord’s favor or the year of Jubilee. Let me explain this a little. We all know that God set aside one day out of the 7 in a week for rest. This is something that we are all to do. It is something that we all need, no exceptions! We need rest and God’s knows this so this is how He set up our world. Now if you are one of the people who work on Sunday, I would suggest that you go to the Lord and ask Him how you are supposed to honor the Sabbath. I am sure that He will help you. But remember, you are to have one day of rest every week. This is important.
God also set aside a year every 7 years as a year of Sabbath. This meant that farm land would be left idle for that year. For those of us who are old enough to remember, farmers used to do this. They would let the land lay idle for a year and then the next year the land would have better yields. We would call this summer fallow. This is commanded by God in Lev. 25.
The next one is even more drastic. After 7 Sabbath years, there would be what they called the year of Jubilee or the year of the Lord’s favor. This happened every 50 years. In the year of Jubilee, even though never really practiced, all slaves would be set free. Men who had been forced to sell their property due to poverty would get their land back again. Families whose lives had been torn apart due to slavery or poverty were reunited. This was why it was called Jubilee. This would be a great year, a year of celebration. Wouldn’t this be a great idea to start in our modern world? The implications of this are almost mind boggling. But I’m not going to go down that road today because our country is too divided as it is.
Anyway, we begin our reading as Jesus is coming from the wilderness experience with Satan. At this point He would have already been at the wedding in Cana that we talked of last week. He was traveling through the land doing the things that only Jesus could do. I think that it is important to notice that Jesus went into the synagogues or churches and taught. He went right to the heart of the Jewish people and did his teaching. And He was well received as it tells us that He was glorified by all. All was going pretty well early on in the ministry of Jesus.
I wish things were going as well for us today. I know a lot of pastors who do a real good job of taking care of their flocks and ministering the Word of Jesus Christ. They are doing all the right things and yet people stay away. We have successfully banished God from just about everything and then we wonder why we have a generation who has never heard of Jesus. It makes me scared to think of this. If you read in your Bible, there is something that always happens when Jesus is talking to you. Whenever the people of God have drifted away from Him, something bad happens. I only wish that more people would catch the fever of the Lord. I pray that more would be able to partake in this tremendous joy and happiness that is only found in God.
So, Jesus is at the beginning of His ministry and things are going rather well. Then He comes to His hometown of Nazareth. As was His custom, He goes to the synagogue there and teaches. There He reads from Isaiah 61 and tells them that He has come to proclaim the Good News. He has come to heal the blind, the sick, and He has come to help the poor. When He finished reading this, He tells them that this Scripture has now been fulfilled in Him. He tells them that He has come to declare Jubilee every year. When He first came, they think that He has done a great job and now they turn on Him and He is driven out of town. When Jesus was done talking to them, they must have taken a collective breath, kind of like what we do when we see something totally unbelievable, because Jesus had to be wrong. They knew that He was only a carpenter and not the Messiah. It would be crazy to believe this.
The Good News here is that it is not crazy to believe this or to follow Jesus. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite. Following Jesus will lead you to life and happiness. Nothing else will get you there. Nothing! So, the question becomes, how do you experience Jubilee today? The first thing you have to do is accept that Jesus as the Messiah. Accept Him as your Savior! Jesus is everything that He claims to be. We have many witnesses who had the honor and privilege of seeing Jesus make wine from water, walk on water, feed 5000 and heal the lame man. If that isn’t enough how about when He fed the 4000, made the blind man see and raised Lazarus from the dead. If this still isn’t enough then how about dying on the cross and being raised up again on the third day and walking, talking and eating with His disciples and followers after they had seen Him die. Plus, He did many, many more miracles. Just think of all the things that Jesus did and then believe. Jesus is the best thing that could ever happen to you!
I remember that we showed a creation science video to the churches we served and they have really liked it. Then a community Bible study saw it and loved it. They liked it so much that they wanted everyone to see it. What Ken Ham does in this series is he applies science to the Bible. The results are an amazing set of proofs that God and Jesus are exactly who they said they were and he proves it with science. If you are a little bit confused or skeptical of some of the things in the Bible, then this series is for you. It will help you to believe in all the miracles that I just mentioned and all of the rest of them in the Bible. We need more things like this to help us get back on track with the Bible and off the track of some of our false worldly ideas.
So, we believe that Jesus was the Messiah and He came to set up Jubilee all the time. Every 50 years things would change in ancient times. Slaves would come home and land would be returned to people and there would be reunions and there would be celebrations. It sure would be nice to have jubilee all the time.
And you can. This comes when you get to know Jesus on a personal basis. This comes when Jesus gives you that spark that gives your life new meaning. This comes when Jesus drenches you in his love and grace. There are so many people who run around and try this and they try that. They are looking for the meaning of their lives. But every time they accomplish something or get to their goals, they feel empty. This is not enough for them so they go back at it harder than before. These are the people who laugh at Christians. These are the people who hate us. They don’t understand that no matter what they do, it will never be enough. No matter what you do, it will never be enough. They will never achieve any lasting fulfillment in their lives unless they come through Jesus. And I know this to be a fact first hand as I waddled through life for so many years without Jesus.
Jesus Christ will give you Jubilee. All you have to do is come to Him and you can have Jubilee every day. It just blows me away how people will tell me how they can’t believe in Jesus. They know that Jesus cannot be the way because they have not found another way?? Then I look in their faces and I can see the lines of sadness. I can see the despair. I can see the hopelessness. Then I try to tell them that Jesus is right in front of them and will help them forever if they would only believe. They can have jubilee forever and not despair forever.
We can have this forever because of the last point I want to make. Jesus didn’t just come to give us salvation. He came to give us transformation. Just think about this a minute. Jesus came to give us salvation, but it doesn’t end there. There are many churches and people who keep scorecards of how many people they saved at last Sunday’s service. They can’t wait for the next Sunday when they can go and save some more and drive that score even higher. Many of them don’t even realize that this is just the first step. If you just leave these new Christians like this, they will never have a chance to transform into mature Christians. Faith without works is dead.
Jesus came to transform us to one of His own. We are called to make more Christians. But we are also called to do so much, much more. We are called to help the poor and needy. We are called to help the prisoners. We are called to help those different from us. And this transformation happens when we take the hand of a young, baby Christian and walk with them, showing them the love of Jesus that is everywhere.
I know that this sounds crazy to some people but it is the truth. All you have to do is believe in Jesus and He will transform you and you can have Jubilee all the time. I still have people who think that I am crazy because I am a Christian. There are still people who don’t like to talk to me because I am a Christian. People thought I was crazy for leaving my job and becoming a pastor. Maybe I am crazy but my life has never been richer or fuller. I have been transformed and you can be too.
All this reminds me of a story told by R. Kent Huges about a man named Bill Broadhurst who loved to run. But Bill suffered a brain aneurysm that left him partially paralyzed. Still, he decided to enter a 10k race because his hero, Bill Rogers, was entered also. So, he ran the race and some of the runners did the course in 30 minutes and some in 60, but it took Bill Broadhurst much longer. He would have to take a stride with his right foot and drag his left one. He was also in terrible and constant pain. He almost gave up at 2 hours and 20 minutes. All the course markers and cones had been taken down. And then he finally saw the finish line. His heart sank as everyone had left and no one was there. He decided to finish as he only had a little way to go. As he came across the finish line, Bill Rogers, the world-famous marathoner who had won this race, came from around the corner and met him. He had been waiting for Broadhurst. Rogers gave Broadhurst a huge hug as he finished. Then he took the gold medal from around his neck and put it around the neck of the last runner to finish the race. Then he said, “Bill Broadhurst, you’re the real winner! Take the gold!”
This is what Jesus Christ will do for you. He will lift you up out of your mire of sin and hold you. He will transform you and put His gold medal around your neck and say, “You are the real winner. Take the gold.” And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray
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