Opening Illustration: A missionary couple who had been gone from the US for years on end were finally coming home. They had faithfully served God and ministered among the poor, and had seen many lives brought into the kingdom of God. When they got off the airplane, there was a crowd of people cheering and waving “Welcome home” banners. At first, the missionaries were overwhelmed that so many had turned out for their homecoming. But then, they realized that the banners and crowds of people were not for them at all, but for somebody else on the plane. As a matter of fact, nobody at all had turned out to welcome these old missionaries home. Nobody was there to thank them or even shake their hand. But then the husband turned to his wife and said, “It doesn’t matter. Remember, although we’ve come back to the United States, we are not truly home yet. There will be a wonderful welcome and a great reception when we enter our eternal home in heaven.” That couple had it right. Like Jesus, their goal was to be popular with God.
Introduction: Do not expect to have a smooth and trouble-free life while having the call of God upon your life. The road to fulfill that call is not always a rosy picture. If you are pleasing God above men, you are surely going to run into gravel, boulders and sometimes even a wall. Jesus was all about pleasing His Father and sure did he get Himself into a lot of trouble which finally took Him to the cross.
The road to the call of God upon your life is hard and packed with adversity and challenges. You may even encounter the wrath, hate and life threats from people. How it pans out depends upon how intense your relationship with God really is. If you are a God pleaser, do not expect a leveled ground. It is asking for the moon. Obviously you cannot serve 2 masters or try to please two opposites. You are going to run into more problems. For that call to be fulfilled in your life, you have to decide whether you want to reconcile with walking on this road or not …
What will you encounter on your road to fulfill God’s call?
1. WITNESS to the FULFILLMENT of your call (vs. 16-22)
Jesus had alluded to Isaiah 61:1-2 as a witness to His calling. The fulfillment could be categorized in six forms.
Firstly, His calling was to preach the gospel to the poor. The Gospel, the good news is that God has provided a Savior from sin, and that those who believe in Jesus Christ will be delivered from death, and given eternal life.
Secondly, His calling was to come to heal the brokenhearted. Now, I know this phrase is not in some of your Bibles, but it is in the majority of the ancient texts, and it is also found in Isaiah 61:1, so I think it belongs there. And I’m thankful it is there, because all of us are brokenhearted at times, and Jesus came to comfort us and help us through our sorrows.
Thirdly, His calling was to proclaim liberty to the captives. This is liberty from spiritual bondage to sin. All of us, even when we are Christians, find ourselves in bondage to certain sins. In Christ, you have been set free.
Fourth, His ministry was one of giving sight to the blind. He did this physically by healing blind people, but more importantly, He came to give sight to those who are spiritually blind. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that Satan has blinded the minds of the unbelieving. Jesus came to give sight back to those who were blind. He gives spiritual understanding to those who walk in darkness.
Fifthly, His calling was to set at liberty those who are oppressed. The word oppressed could also be translated “bruised.” It has the idea of being crushed, shattered, broken down, and mistreated in life. Is that how you feel? Broken, mistreated, shattered, overlooked, lacerated by life, distressed, downcast, exhausted, ready to quit? He came to set you free too. To heal your wounds, and set you free, and give you liberty and joy and peace. It is all found in Jesus. He said, “Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Finally, as stated in Luke 4:19, Jesus’ calling was one in which He proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord. This is first of all a reference to the Jewish Year of Jubilee. It was a year when all debts were forgiven, all land was returned to its original owner. Everybody got a brand new start. A fresh beginning. And that is what we get in Jesus Christ. He makes everything new. We are a new creation in Christ. The old is gone, the new is come.
His family, disciples and His adversaries got to witness the fulfillment of His calling. As we and others witness our calling being played out, they will be compelled to articulate that it is of the Lord because the empowerment to execute the call is only from Him alone.
2. Stand up to face ADVERSE CHALLENGES (vs. 23-27)
Though this exact saying isn't recorded elsewhere, the words, "Physician, heal yourself" are plain enough. It's similar to our proverb which observes that the cobbler's children go barefoot. Probably the townspeople are applying the words to Jesus hometown vs. other towns where Jesus had performed healings. In other words they are saying. You've healed elsewhere; how about in your own hometown?
The skepticism in Nazareth was so pervasive that Mark records, "He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith." (Mark 6:5-6)
Have you ever wondered why your family doesn't accept your ardent faith? They "know you too well." They remember your past, perhaps, and don't believe you've changed. Though Jesus' family finally came around, his townspeople never did. Sometimes faith means a lonely life.
The principle that a prophet is never honored in his own country, by his own people meant that Jesus, if He were a true prophet, would not be received with open arms, or with bowed knee, but with rejection, like all of the other prophets. The only way that Jesus could be warmly and positively received by His peers was if they did not understand what Jesus meant by what He said, that they did not understand His claim to be Messiah, nor what kind of Messiah He would be. Jesus would not receive misguided praise and therefore He set out to correct their misconceptions of His messianic identity and mission.
Jesus pointed out that if His ministry were correctly understood, He would be rejected like all the other prophets of Israel’s history. Prophets were not received by Israel, but spurned, persecuted, and even killed, and this without exception. In both cases, the prophet of Israel brought blessings to Gentiles which the Jews, their own people did not receive. In both cases, the prophets were sent to Israel to condemn their sin and to pronounce divine judgment, and were largely rejected by their own people.
In the context of this description of Jesus’ return to His home town, Jesus is saying is simply refusing to fulfill their expectations because they are ill founded, based upon a false grasp of the Scriptures and a misconception about Messiah and His ministry. Jesus tested their enthusiasm and incurred their wrath by simply reminding His audience that He, like other prophets of Israel, had come to bring blessing not exclusively to the Jews, their own people, but to the Gentiles.
We may thus see why our Lord found it necessary to offend His audience with the truth, so that their sin would be exposed, as well as the nature and need for His coming as the sin-bearer of the world. But why did Jesus choose this issue, the blessing of the Gentiles, to provoke His listeners to action? Why this issue, rather than some other?
3. Endure REJECTION, WRATH, HATE and THREAT from men (vs. 28-30)
David is a great example of the greater your calling the stronger your adversary. His family, the giant goliath and king Saul contended with him on his path to the throne. Jesus underwent if not similar but more aggressive contentions on His path to the cross, resurrection and the right hand of the Father.
Jesus faced rejection from His own. Rejection is a two-way street. If we are honest with ourselves, we’re probably dishing it out as often as we’re getting it. Why do we do it? Why are we compelled to turn disagreement into rejection… and punctuate it with a put-down? A psychologist would tell you it’s insecurity. Put in more theological terms, pride is the root of rejection… the pride to work our will on others… the pride that cannot abide contradiction… the pride that casts relationships as contests.
These churchgoers in Nazareth came to the synagogue on the Sabbath. They sat there looking holy and pious. They prayed. They listened to several sermons from the Word of God. Then they went out to murder Jesus because they didn’t like what He said. The order of events is ludicrous to think about, but I fear it happens all the time in churches across America, and even in this church here. We come. We sing. We pray. We smile and shake hands. We listen to a sermon. Then we go home and murder people with our words.
Well, the people in Nazareth tried to physically murder Jesus. They hated what He had said so much, that they took Jesus outside of town to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, where they tried to throw Him off from the cliff. What they were probably trying to do was stone him. There were two different kinds of stoning. One was the type we think of where they throw stones at a person until he or she dies. But another kind was what they were attempting to do to Jesus here. They would take the person out of the town to a cliff, and throw him off of it so that the legs broke. Then they would throw stones down on top of the person until they were crushed. That is what they were trying to do to Jesus here. To stone Him.
But why? Why are they trying to kill Jesus in this way? Because they thought he was a false prophet. He came into town. He preached a sermon. They disagreed with his sermon, so they asked for a sign to prove He was a prophet. Rather than give them one, He used the Word of God to correct their thinking. Well, they didn’t like this very much. Nobody likes to be corrected. Nobody likes to be told they are wrong. In their minds, Jesus was a false prophet. And what do you do with false prophets? You stone them. So they took him outside of town to throw Him off the cliff.
This is the lesson Jesus shows us, and the lesson He tried to show the people in His hometown of Nazareth. Your call in life and ministry is not about getting the blessings and honor you think you deserve. God may give those to someone you hate with the hope that you may learn to love them. Life and ministry is not about getting fame and popularity among men. You may not get these at all – especially if you are trying to be popular with God. Like Jesus, we should not care about our latest popularity poll among men. Rather, if you were to die today, when you stood before God, would you hear Him say, “You pleased me. You obeyed me. You were popular with me. Well done good and faithful servant”?
Application: I believe that this incident in the life of our Lord has widespread implications for our own lives. Alluding to the vision for 2016 “To spur a prophetic culture” we also need to understand our calling as a Christian. What did Christ’s calling mean?
• God’s Prophets are Never Popular.
• All Christians have all been given a Prophetic Task.
• Prophets are not Popular because of Whom they Identify With (God).
• Prophets are not popular because of their Message.
• One of the Greatest Hindrances to our Prophetic Ministry is our Desire to be Popular with the World, and to have its Approval.
The life of our Lord is a constant testimony to His desire to please the Father, more than anyone else. Thus, His actions and His words are always governed by the will of the Father. Once we have settled the question as to whom we would serve, whom we would please, we have come to grips with the most fundamental issue of the task of the prophet.
