The Messiah's Ministry Series

ISAIAH 61: 1-3

THE MESSIAH’S MISSION

[Luke 4: 18-19]

The Messianic Servant was appointed to bring the good news of God’s salvation to mankind. He would be empowered by the Spirit of YAHWEH to minister the accompanying blessings of salvation also. The Messiah’s most potent instrument for ministry would be the proclaimed Word. His work or ministry will establish righteousness and result in the exaltation of God.

Not only does the passage state the mission of Christ, it also relays the mission of the Church. What God did when He became flesh in Jesus Christ was to identified with man. Believers are to identify with Christ also. [We are to die to self, Satan, and the world by identifying with His death and we are to live life by identifying with the power of His resurrection.] The church and the believers who form it are to identify with Christ’s redemptive ministry, His redemptive purpose in the world today. These verses not only reveal the determined ministry of Jesus, they reveal the mission that church is to strive to follow and fulfill.

I. THE MINISTRY OF GROWTH, 1. [ BEING & BECOMING]

II. THE MINISTRY OF GRACE, 2. [& OPPORTUNITY]

III. THE MINISTRY OF GRANTING, 3. [& EXCHANGING]

When Jesus was thirty years old, He walked into a small synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth. He was invited to read from the scrolls. He found this passage before us and proclaimed His first message from it.

In verse 1 all three Persons of the Trinity are mentioned: the Spirit . . . the Sovereign Lord, and the Messiah. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners;

Having predicted in the preceding chapter the blessing that Zion will enjoy, Isaiah now prophecies of the One who will bring those blessings, the Messiah or Isaiah’s Suffering Servant.

These words that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me can not be disassociate from that memorable scene at the Jordan, when, after the Lord’s baptism, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit, like a dove, rested Upon Him. After Jesus’ anointing He went into the wilderness. There He was tried and tempted such as no man had been before or since and had come forth triumphant because He followed the will of the Lord as revealed in the Word of the Lord. Surrendering completely to God’s will for your life and standing faithfully in temptation’s battles, is the necessary preparation for effective ministry. It is victory in these battles that causes us to walk in the power of the Spirit of God (Luke 4:14).

Even forty days of the fiercest temptation imaginable could not deprive Him of God’s holy anointing. He was really for spiritual ministry, to be on mission with God. Then He went to Galilee, stood up in the synagogue of Nazareth, and announced the anointing He had received & what His ministry would be because of the anointing of the Spirit of God.

If the Master needed it, how much more do we! If He did not attempt to bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, or the opening of the prison to the bound; if He would not preach, or comfort, or communicate joy, until that memorable unction had been imparted-how absurd it is for us to attempt similar works without this anointing of the Spirit of the Lord!

What a marvelous forecast we find here of the mission of Christ through His Church to the world during the present age. She is sent to take up and pass on this blessed ministry. It also reveals the true needs of mankind. The Word reveals the salient characteristics of a world full of the broken-hearted, of captives, prisoners, and mourners, needing divine assistance and deliverance. Man is so fallen and helpless that he needs the entire Trinity: The Lord God, the Father; Me, the Son; and The Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

Although the heavens did not open and speak, each of us recalls that time when Jesus came into our life by the Holy Spirit. We are gifted and empowered for life and for ministry by the same Spirit, if we have come underneath the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Why has God so anointed us? So that we might bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.

II. THE MINISTRY OF GRACE, 2.

Verse 2 the reason and the season of our proclamation of such great news. To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn,