OVERCOMING PRIDE & PREJUDICE: ACCEPTING THE GRACIOUS GOSPEL
Luke 4:14-30: LIFEWAY WINTER QUARTERLY 2020/21 SESSION 8
I used to hate Pickled Beets! My Mom, Dad, and Sister however, loved them! Dad liked them because they were cheap- you could get 2 Stokely (an Ohio based cannery at the time) cans for 40 cents. Mom and my Sister liked them because of their strong tough potato texture and “sour” Pennsylvania Dutch taste. For me, it was like- YUCK!! The deep purple color also stained and ruined my favorite Star Wars T-shirt when I was a kid. I guess you could say I had an “extreme prejudice” against Pickled Beets until 2 years ago. One of our church ladies would always make a fresh batch and I guess she noticed at our church fellowship meals that I never put any on my plate. One day I was sitting next to her at the meal when she offered me some and I decided I should at least take two to be polite. I psyched myself up to not grimace or make strange faces when I took that inevitable first bite. As I brought the deep purple veggie perched on the end of my fork close to my mouth- bad childhood memories of my “wailing and gnashing of teeth” while my Dad said “clean your plate!” my Mom said “beets are good for you!” and my Sister said, “deal with it!” came flooding back to me. BUT it turned out to not be the apocalyptic experience I was dreading; they were sweet and quite good. I actually went and got another helping! My prejudices against Pickled Beets turned out not to always be true and were actually unjustified and I never would have known had I not been courageous enough to look past my presuppositions and try them again on faith.
Being prejudiced and “hating” Pickled Beets is one thing but the Truth of the Gospel is another! How do people respond to and receive the Gospel message? Why is it “sweet” for some and “sour” for others? What are the dangers of rejecting the Gospel and what are the things that harden people’s hearts against the Gospel Message? As believers how can we prepare ourselves for people’s rejecting response to the Gospel while at the same time guard our own hearts from becoming hardened towards God and our neighbor? Luke gives us several answers in today’s lesson; let’s take a look…
Luke Chapter 4 marks the start of Jesus’ earthly ministry and one thing we must not miss as we examine Jesus’ ministry is the importance of Him being filled and led by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s anointing on Jesus not only fulfills Old Testament prophesy from Isaiah (Isa 61:1-2;- Lk 4:18-19) that the Messiah would be anointed from On High but confirms the Truthfulness of that anointing of Jesus as the Son of God and the power of the Spirit at work through Jesus as the Son of Man- a power that was displayed in miraculous signs and wonders done in Capernaum (4:31-44) and in the surrounding countryside of Galilee (4:14). Remember our “roadmap” for understanding Luke… Jesus and the Gospel are a gift from Heaven. Jesus’ ministry comes from Heaven filled with power, Truth and salvation in His name to all who believe in Him. BUT while “signs and wonders” might help belief and Faith (especially for those Gentiles who did not have Torah and the Old Testament) God wants the people to believe in Jesus based upon His Word (faith) not just evidentiary signs. Jesus is entering Nazareth, His hometown where people “knew” Him as Joseph’s son (v.22) and that familiarity like for many prophets and leaders bred contempt. It was hard for people to look past the Jesus they “knew” for the Jesus of scripture (Son of God, Son of Man) that was being revealed and proclaimed to them before their very eyes- between the gap of “hometown” Jesus and Jesus LORD and Savior by the Word and good news of the Gospel a requirement of faith. Were the people willing to take that first step and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the Truth of Jesus’ identity to them and if they did would they still accept Him as THEIR Savior and LORD? Luke’s answer is both true testimony of his witnesses and a lesson to the early church of people’s responses to the Gospel and the things that hinder them and cause others to reject the Truth of God’s Word and Christ’s identity and salvific work on their behalf.
Jesus did what He always did in the start of His ministry and it is a prototype that the early church and the Apostles would also follow, to go into the local synagogue and proclaim the message of the Gospel (see Mark 1:15). Luke gives us more specifics in verses 18 and 19 where Jesus quotes Isaiah 61:1-2 while leaving out the last part on “judgment” in verse 2 (not because judgment was not coming but because now was the time of acceptance of God’s grace in Christ) then measure the responses then determine where to go from there (Luke tells us in Acts that as a rejection of the Gospel in the synagogues Paul and the other missionaries would go into the “marketplace” {Acts 17} but the emphasis was not that one rejection forfeited further proclamation but that the Gospel was given every opportunity at the right time in every area). This was Jesus’ Jewish Hometown of Nazareth’s opportunity.
Jesus starts with the scripture of Messiah being anointed by the Holy Spirit with the proclaiming and prophetic role of the good news that Messiah has come to save the poor (not just physically or situational poor as the Jews of Isaiah’s time would have understood it, or even the Jews oppressed by Rome in Jesus’ day would have understood it but the “poor in spirit” – all those who acknowledge their neediness and need of God’s forgiveness through Messiah). Messiah will bring freedom for the prisoner (again more than prisoner of Rome but freedom from sin and its oppression over life see Romans 7 and 8). Jesus has come to reveal the gift of Himself from Heaven so that people might know Him fully and turn (repent) and be saved (see Jn 8:32) to give spiritual sight to the blind with Christ’s physical miracles of healing being illustrative of these Spiritual Truths. The final point of verse 19 is a reference to the “Year of Jubilee” in Leviticus 25:13 in which every 50 years all debts are forgiven, all land is returned to its original owner and all slaves (indentured servants) were set free from their obligations.
The Year of Jubilee was an extreme act of “grace” shown in the Torah and as far as most Bible scholars know- Israel never put the command into practice as a nation throughout its history… (Perhaps we need a “Year of Jubilee” in our Country after COVID-19 to start afresh and anew? The closest we’ve ever come politically to Leviticus 25 is FDR’s “New Deal” program). Yet the act of grace Isaiah prophesied and Jesus proclaims is greater by far than this… It is that God forgives sinners by grace through Faith in Jesus Christ (the Gospel message) “that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8-10). The basic Old Testament understanding of God’s grace fulfilled in and through Messiah prophesied by Isaiah and the coming of the Kingdom of God in Messiah from Heaven would have been something the Nazarene Jews would easily have understood. Jesus’ reading of these Words would not have amazed them- troubled them or even challenged them. What did amaze them was Jesus’ commentary on these verses in Luke 4:20 and following. Jesus claimed that they were “fulfilled that day in their hearing!” Were they amazed in a good way at Jesus’ pronouncement? Were they confused? Or were they offended (v.22)?
I think they were all three; much like Luke’s accounts of people’s responses to Jesus’ parables… It takes awhile to come to a deeper and richer meaning of the Truth of what Jesus is saying and claiming and then even more time to figure out how to respond to it once you know what He has said (Parables always have a delayed “shock value” to those who truly listen). The Gospel message is still responded to the same way today… At first, the idea of “The LORD’s favor” His love expressed in grace and Christ’s work on the cross and resurrection sounds wonderful to us, that God loves us that much, but then we have to struggle with the fact we are IN NEED of God’s grace- that we aren’t “good enough” that in our natural selves we are NOT OK with God but sinners separated from Him, weak, deprived, depraved, oppressed by our own sinfulness and helpless- poor in spirit (see Mt 5:1-13) facing certain eternal judgment (the end of Isaiah 61:2) without Him. That message is either sobering or insulting to people (Truth is often that way- reality isn’t dependent upon our opinions or feelings- something is true or it is not- we don’t get to define Truth since we are created beings but since we are created beings in humility, God’s Truth will define us).
Truth gives us a firm foundation upon which to work with towards God and His love through the acceptance of the Gospel or towards our destruction and the rejection of the Gospel because we feel “we aren’t really that bad” we don’t need God through Christ, or we’re “too bad” for God to save us and Christ is not sufficient for our saving (this is the problem the Nazarenes had, there was no way hometown Jesus could be the sufficient one- the Messiah- we think we know Him too well as Joseph the Carpenter’s son- In their hearts they were thinking if He is Messiah, Son of God- Son of Man let Him PROVE IT with signs and wonders! (A very similar line of reasoning and tempting that Satan used in Luke 4:1-13) but Jesus is no “showman” He doesn’t rectify the withered crops of our faithlessness, unbelief and rejection (see John 15) but instead verifies, waters and lifts up the growing seeds of a new faith by displaying His faithfulness (see John 15) sometimes through mighty signs and wonders but also through the miracles He does every day as Elizabeth Barrett Brown says: “loving us to the level of every day’s most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.” (Sonnet XLIII). The more time people spend believing lies or basting and grasping at their own unexamined prejudices and fears (think of Jesus’ example of God being gracious to the Gentiles- to their enemies the Syrians and Phoenicians of Jesus’ Old Testament example) because of pride the harder it will be to believe or even recognize the Truth to the point that all the signs Jesus could have given them wouldn’t have changed their minds or their hearts at all (remember the Pharisees that crucified Christ saw His miracles but refused to repent). Jesus wasn’t trying to “alienate” or insult His hometown, but as the Son of God He knew what was in the people’s hearts and the Holy Spirit in Him not only proclaimed the Truth of His Identity and that He had come to save all people but revealed the hardness of hearts in Jesus’ hometown. A hardness that toughened the soil of their receptivity to the Gospel because they could not see (were blinded) past their own prejudices of what they knew to the point they could not see the revelation God had given them. The last part of Jesus’ message merely confirmed it. Jesus’ true message of the Gospel would either sober people to their need of Him and the acceptance of the good news of His salvation through faith and belief or insult and offend them to rejection and hostility towards Him. The same is true today.
People will either accept or reject what the Holy Spirit reveals to them. They will believe, confess, accept and repent from what they hear or they will continue to rely on their own knowledge and prejudices and reject it. But it’s not enough to just talk about how others will receive the Gospel message. Even as believers we need to examine how we “receive” the Gospel on a daily basis if we are ever to proclaim it faithfully in Spirit and Truth to others with God’s power and “speak the Truth IN LOVE”. We need to examine ourselves and our “familiarity” with the Gospel. We need to see the Gospel and God’s love for us, and His salvation with fresh eyes every day. How do we do this? Being in God’s Word is important but we must never assume we are authorities over it but submit humbly to it. Familiarity with scripture is a lifelong pursuit and a good thing, but let’s not allow familiarity with God’s Word to increase our pride or contempt over scripture; the only authority we have to speak Truth comes when the Spirit reveals it to us and compels us to proclaim it just as Jesus did as the Son of Man-even though He was the Son of God! We need to depend upon the Spirit to guide us into all Truth, and pray, and study. We also need to examine our own prejudices and ask the Spirit to reveal if and where they are hindering our spiritual discernment and knowing the Truth. Sometimes the Truth is hard for us to accept and deal with- especially if it is contrary to our wants and desires no matter how well intentioned those desires may be (especially in today’s environment), but we never have to be afraid of the Truth because God can give us a starting point with it to move us towards His grace, our redemption, and reconciliation with Him and our neighbor but if we harbor lies or allow ourselves to be deceived by an untrustworthy person (by scriptural standards)- “you will spot them by their fruits” Mt. 7:15-20) telling us what “we like” to hear (2 Tim 3-4) we will greatly harm our witness, the witness of the Church, and bring judgment on ourselves. Unexamined prejudices hinder our walk with God and lies get us nowhere. We need to obey the Spirit, and always uphold the Truth doing it as lovingly as we can but still upholding it regardless of people’s responses because the Love of God “does not delight in evil but rejoices with the Truth!” 1 Corinthians 13:6. We live in perilous times but know I am praying for you, and for us! That the Holy Spirit will guide us into all Truth; grant us heavenly wisdom and discernment that our conversation may be “full of grace seasoned with salt so that we may know how to answer everyone!” Colossians 4:6.
All the Best through Love in Christ, Darrin.