Our Prophet, Priest, and King

We are meant to announce to the blind that, if they believe in this Jesus, they may never see with their physical eyes in this life but they will see glories they cannot imagine. We are meant to announce to prisoners that they may still be required to serve lifelong sentences, but they will be free inside that jail if they believe. We must tell the poor they may not receive riches and may have to serve the Lord the rest of their lives in poverty, but in glory they will receive riches they cannot imagine. Christ Jesus intends for us to go to our neighborhood and neighbors to make this known. This is why God put your church where it is, and why you should also plant more churches in other neighborhoods across your city.

First, Jesus explains the text. It’s a one-sentence sermon that explodes in your ear every couple of words. I imagine he said verse 21 very slowly, clearly, and loudly.

In this one sentence Jesus proclaims that he is the Messiah who brings this great salvation that was promised to Israel.

The people enjoy the sermon, but they don’t see the Savior! They think Jesus is a nice preacher, but they are too familiar with him. All they see is “Joseph’s son” (v. 22). They miss the very fulfillment of the Scripture and only see a hometown boy who has made good.

Sometimes the truth is hidden in plain sight. Sometimes the familiar hides the fantastic. That’s why most automobile accidents happen within a few blocks of the driver’s home. They get close to home and they assume everything is as it’s always been so they don’t see the unusual thing going on with the other driver. Familiarity is why most household accidents happen in the bathroom. We’re so comfortable and familiar that we don’t see the wet floor.

Familiarity is why a lot of people don’t recognize Jesus as their Messiah. They’ve had just enough Bible to make them think they know, so they’re not looking any deeper. They’re familiar with Sunday School Bible stories. They’ve come to church at Easter and Christmas. They’ve heard a little bit on TV or in the barbershop. So they’ve become familiar, and they don’t see. Don’t be too familiar with Jesus. Look hard. Listen long. Be certain you recognize him for who he is. He is someone who gets deeper the deeper you look.

Jesus goes on to anticipate what they people are thinking (v. 23). Jesus sees them even though they don’t see him. Jesus says there’s coming a day when they will say to him, “Doctor, heal yourself!” We can’t help but think of the religious leaders at Jesus’s crucifixion when they mockingly say, “He saved others; let him save himself if this is God’s Messiah” (23:35). That day is coming, but right now they want him to do in Nazareth, his hometown, what he did in Capernaum. They want him to put Nazareth first and minister there. They want him to prove himself by working miracles and putting Israel first. It’s the response of pride and unbelief. It’s self-importance and entitlement.

Jesus finds no honor in their response (v. 24). They’re not going to honor him here. Familiarity breeds contempt. To them he is always going to be “Joseph’s son.”

You see, beloved, it’s dishonoring Jesus to call him something less than he really is. Muslims say they honor Jesus as a great prophet, but they dishonor him by denying he is the Son of God. Hindus say they honor Jesus by worshiping him as one of thousands of gods, but they dishonor him by not seeing that he is the only true God and all others are idols. Some people think they honor Jesus by saying, “He is a good moral teacher,” but they dishonor him by refusing to see he is the Savior of the world.

To honor Jesus, you have to receive him as he really is: the Messiah and Son of God who alone rescues sinners from God’s wrath and makes those same sinners righteous in God’s sight.

Then comes the second dramatic revelation. Not only does the audience in the synagogue not accept him as Messiah, but the Gentiles will be brought in while Israel is cut off. He gives them two analogies from their history.

Sidon and Syria were Gentile lands and people. Jesus is saying God’s salvation passed over Israel and went to the “unclean” Gentiles. Israel rejected their prophets, but the Gentiles received them and were saved. Now we remember the last words of Isaiah 61: “For as the earth produces its growth, and as a garden enables what is sown to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations” (v. 11). God always intended to save people from every nation and ethnic group and language group, not just from Israel. As Paul explains in Romans, the Gentiles have been grafted into God’s salvation because the Israelites have been broken off (Rom 11:17). That is what Jesus preaches here: Israel will be cut off and the Gentiles brought in.

God’s salvation is for all nations. It’s for everyone who will receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and God.

I think Luke 4 compels us to consider if we’re like the people in the synagogue who miss Jesus. Perhaps we’ve been brought up in church the way they were raised in synagogue. We know the language of the church. We know the culture and the rituals. We know the routine, but we don’t know Jesus. I think Jesus’s sermon is aimed at nominal believers, at people who assume they are God’s people but have no living, saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And the Lord’s application to them and to us is you can miss God’s salvation if you fail to recognize Jesus. Perhaps you have not thought of Jesus as necessary to your salvation and forgiveness with God. You have not thought of him as the one who provides you righteousness and pays the penalty for your sin. Today is the day of salvation. Today this salvation is preached in your hearing, just as it was then. Believe on Jesus. Trust him. Repent of sin, come to him in faith, and you will be saved. Do not miss the salvation he brings.

Luke 4:28-41

The Israelites reject him (vv. 28-29). Ironically, the people try to put Jesus in the same position that Satan tried to tempt him with—to throw the Lord down from a height. Then the people get a miracle, but not like the ones in Capernaum—like they want him to do (v. 23). Jesus passes right through them unharmed. I wonder what they thought when that happened? Come here! Grab him! Hold him! Jesus never said a word.

As far as we know, the Lord never returned to Nazareth. The Gospels do not record him entering his hometown again. Some rejections are final.

My non-Christian friend, don’t look to Jesus to do parlor tricks to satisfy your unbelief. You’re called to take him at his word, to believe his teaching. It’s in his word that the Lord reveals himself. When he tells you he brings God’s salvation to the nations, believe him. Trust him. Don’t reject him, or he may reject you in the end. That’s why we plead with you: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ so you may be saved!

Following the people’s rejection in Nazareth, Jesus moves down to Capernaum. Capernaum was Jesus’s ministry headquarters. It’s where Peter lived with his family. At Capernaum Jesus reveals something more about what it means for him to be the Son of God. Jesus repeatedly demonstrates that as the unique Son of God he has authority over all things.

In our text the Son of God is a King with authority in three domains.

Matthew 7:29 says Jesus’s teaching was not like the scribes and Pharisees, who taught a lot of speculation and doubt. Jesus’s teaching came with exclamation marks and with power. He taught as if he had the ability and the right to define and proclaim the very words of God. And he did!

There is certainty and confidence in his message. Our Lord taught the Old Testament like it was his autobiography. There is power in his words—so much so that outwardly religious people are amazed! Do you know how difficult it is to amaze outwardly religious people? They have heard and seen it all. But as Jesus thunders in preaching their hearts respond. They had never seen or heard a teacher like Jesus with such authority in his teaching.

Do not pass verse 33 too fast. There is a sad irony here. You run into the devil in the most surprising places, don’t you? You do not expect to find demon-possessed people in a synagogue or church. Hollywood has us thinking we find demons in graveyards or dark forests. Satan makes us look at the dead while he takes over the living. Satan took over a man and took him to church! We do not have to go farther than the assembly of God’s people to find evidence of the enemy’s work. Satan loves to oppose Christ’s work right where the Lord is meant to be worshiped.

Here this man is in the synagogue screaming. The religious people had no answer But with a command the Lord Jesus Christ ruled over this evil spirit (v. 35). He has the power and the right to control even the forces of darkness, to command Satan and his minions.

That is why, in verse 36, “Amazement came over them all.” When you think about what a demon is, this really is amazing. A demon is a fallen angel who rebelled with Satan against God and was cast from heaven. They are committed to opposing God’s rule and everything God does. They hate God and hate God’s people. Their entire mission is to resist God. But when Jesus speaks, demons tremble!

Dualism is the idea that good and evil are locked in a struggle and the battle is almost equal. But the Christian worldview does not allow any such thinking. There is Jesus—King of kings and Lord of lords with all authority in heaven and on earth. He always wins! He rules over even the demonic powers!

Jesus shows this authority primarily through his healing ministry. The Lord heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (vv. 38-39). When Luke refers to a “high fever” (v. 38) he speaks with a physician’s concern and insight. This is no common cold or flu bug. This woman is down and out. The fever must have been desperate because “they asked him about her” (v. 38). They’re asking for a miracle. “So he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her” (v. 39). Fevers do not have ears or minds. Fevers are not sentient beings. But the Son of God speaks to this virus or whatever causes the fever, and this unhearing, unthinking thing obeys him! What power!

This was no fluke or fraud. The Lord healed “various diseases” (v. 40). He is not healing those vague, unverifiable kinds of sicknesses. This is not a tent revival featuring a fake healer planting people in the audience. The Lord healed “each one” (v. 40). He did not turn anybody away. He did not sell tickets or ask for an offering. He sat there well into sunset, and he personally laid hands on every person who came to him, and they were healed.

Every disease, every person . . . healed. I often wonder why people who claim to have healing powers and gifts do not simply go to hospitals and heal the sick. Why must they rent stadiums, sell tickets, and have cameras filming them? There is something demonic about that. If you have the ability to heal but you use it as a means of building a name for yourself or lining your pockets with money, then you are not doing the Lord’s work.

When Jesus heals, there is no fakery. Satan always has counterfeits, but Jesus is the real deal. He is the Son of God, the King of kings, and he has authority in his teaching, authority over demons, and authority over physical existence.

In this text of Scripture, between the people and the demons, who understands the truth about Jesus? It was the demons! The demon cried out, “I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” (v. 34). Luke tells us, “Demons were coming out of many, shouting and saying, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ” (v. 41). The evil spirits get it right. They know Jesus is “the Holy One of God”—another way of referring to Jesus as the Messiah, the Chosen Savior of the world. Demons know this.

Beloved, do not let demons that cannot be saved acknowledge more about Jesus than you whom he came to save. Demons have sense enough to ask, “Have you come to destroy us?” (v. 34). The demons knew he would; their only concern was when. They did not assume they had unlimited time to carry on their wickedness. They knew their days were numbered.

The days of sinful man’s rebellion are numbered too. You will either end your rebellion by repenting now of your sin, confessing it to God, and asking for his forgiveness through Jesus Christ, or Jesus will end your rebellion by demonstrating his holiness in condemnation. My friend, don’t sit here in your sins and fail to ask the Lord, “Will you destroy me because of my sin?” The wise man repents. The wise man turns to Jesus. The wise man recognizes that Jesus is the Son of God, the chosen one of God. Be wise. Recognize Jesus. Come to him while you may be saved. I plead with you, before it’s too late, before you die in your sin and face the Lord’s judgment, repent and believe. Do not allow an evil spirit to respond more honestly to Jesus than you.

Christian, the response of these demons has much to teach us, too. Look how loudly they proclaim that Jesus is the Holy One of God and the Son of God: “with a loud voice” (v. 33); “shouting” (v. 41). That’s how demons acknowledge Jesus. Do we acknowledge Jesus as loudly? Or are we in some measure ashamed to proclaim his name? We must not allow demons to proclaim Christ more boldly than we do. If we are ashamed of Jesus before men, he will be ashamed of us before his Father in heaven (Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26).

And, Christian, consider how the demons obey Jesus. Are we quicker and more joyful in our obedience to Jesus than demons are? They obey him because he exercises raw authority toward them. Toward us he shows love. How much more should we who have been loved by God through Jesus his Son show our love toward him in a quick, glad, full obedience?

Beloved, let us resolve not to allow demons to acknowledge and obey Jesus more loudly and more quickly than we acknowledge and obey the Lord who loves us and gave his life for us.

In Luke 4 Jesus came preaching the good news of the kingdom throughout the region of Galilee. That same gospel is preached in our day. We still live in “the year of God’s favor” (v. 19). This is a day not to be wasted but treasured. Drink in the realization that Christ is for us Prophet, Priest, and King. He has endured every temptation that all humanity would have failed. He has brought the good news of salvation that all humanity needed. He has exercised his kingship for the blessing of all who have been broken by the fall. Christ is for us the sufficient and only Savior. And this Jesus, who is your Messiah and who has authority over all things, loves you. Hope in him and trust his love.