God’s Global Gospel

We just feel encouraged, Lord, knowing that you have done all the work to save us by your gracious will. You sought us out. You united us through faith in faith in Jesus alone. You united us to your son. Our fate is bound up with him.

What a gift. So Lord, I want us to just listen to you this morning. I want us to hear from you and to be renewed in our affections for Jesus Christ. It’s in his mighty name we pray. Amen.

Thank you. Maybe seated. Well, good morning. Kids, you are welcome to take off for kids’ church at this time. Thanks for joining us.

Well, today is a special day. Not just because the Seahawks are in the Super Bowl and not just because I have family visiting from out of state today, but my sister and her family are here, but also because this is the day the Lord has made and this is the time to rejoice, come together and to be in church on Sunday. There is nothing better than that. We’re here to worship the Lord. So if you do have your Bibles, we’re going to be in Luke chapter four.

We’ve been in this gospel for a little while now, looking at the life of Jesus. And I don’t know about you, but the longer I have spent in the gospel of Luke, the more I have just fallen in love with Jesus all over again. And that’s my prayer for all of you is that the more you see Jesus, you see his heart, you see his compassion for the lost. You see the way he reached out and touched the leper and cared for those who were hurting. My prayer is that you would fall in love with Jesus all over again.

You know, many people today, when they hear the word Christianity, think of a religion. It’s very common. You talk about Christianity. I am a Christian. People immediately start thinking, okay, so they are in a religion and to the secular friends we have, they probably start thinking, you know, the reason they do the things they do, like go to church, go to Bible studies, pray before meals, all those things, they probably are doing those things in their minds.

They’re thinking, they’re doing those things so they can earn a spot in heaven. They’re climbing up that spiritual ladder. They’re showing God how good they are so that they can earn his favor. That’s a very common belief in many people, that’s what Christianity is, but that is not the gospel. True Christianity is not about climbing a ladder to heaven.

It’s more like falling in love. And you know, if you’ve ever fallen in love, you know that you can’t get your mind off that person. Thinking about them. You can’t stray away from that and you stop thinking just about yourself and what pleases you. You start focusing on what would make her happy or what would make him happy.

How can I do something for them? You want to know everything about them. And that’s what it’s like to encounter the real Jesus of scripture. You want to know him. You want to get more into his heart, find out more about him and you want to see his fingerprints in all of your life.

You want to experience him. Paul explained it this way, if anyone is in Christ, they’re a new creation. You’re made new. And that means that you no longer look at other people from this worldly vantage point. You now see people through this new lens called the kingdom of God.

You see all of life differently because Jesus has changed your life. So even though Jesus is the one you value most and he’s the one at the center, that doesn’t mean that others are suddenly valued less. Actually, when Jesus is central in your life, everybody else is elevated. You start seeing everybody else in a new light and you love people more because you love Jesus most. We’ll see that in this passage this morning.

This is kind of part two from last week’s sermon. Last week we saw Jesus came and he was preaching in the synagogue to the hometown crowd of Nazareth. And so far everybody loves what Jesus has to say. He’s become very popular at this point. Going all over Galilee, people are loving what he has to say.

But now we get to the second part. And this is the part where we see their response after he finishes his message. And we’ll see that they get upset. And what upsets people in Nazareth is that Jesus says God has a love for everyone. Not just Jewish people, not just the good people.

That’s how people often think God is for the good guys. And of course we would put ourselves right there. Those guys, but the Bible says Jesus came for everyone. Here’s the big idea this morning. Jesus came not to rescue one particular race or nation, but the whole world.

That’s why Jesus came. If you would please stand for the reading of God’s holy and perfect word. We’ll be reading from Genesis, or excuse me, Luke, not Genesis today. I wanna go way back. Luke chapter four, verse 22.

Luke says this. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman, the Syrian. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. He rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away.

Thank you, maybe seated. This passage, if nothing else, this passage reminds us that there is no neutrality with Jesus. You cannot be neutral with Jesus. You can’t get around it. Either you will love him and continue to love him more and more, and don’t hate him and continue to hate him.

But one thing we do see is that if you encounter the real Jesus, there’s no shrugging your shoulders and there’s no neutrality. He demands a response. Last week, we saw that the Nazareth synagogue was packed. People wanted to hear Jesus. They were ready to hear this message.

And he started out preaching from Isaiah 61. He’s talking about freedom and liberation and captives being set free. He spoke with authority and conviction like nobody else they’d heard. But not only that, he claimed to be the spirit anointed Messiah. He said, this day, this passage I’m reading to you has been fulfilled.

I am that spirit anointed Messiah who has come to set people free. And Luke says they were marveling at the gracious words coming from his mouth. But one thing had to cut their ears. Isaiah 61, he stopped short of that portion about God’s judgment coming. See Isaiah 61, it’s all about freedom, but it also includes this passage about judgment.

Jesus said, I’ve come to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to captives, giving a sight to blind and liberty for the oppressed. But he left off the very next line, which says, in the day of vengeance of our God. It’s interesting. Now, Isaiah 61 was a very well-loved loved passage at this time. They looked forward to it being fulfilled in the Messiah.

Jesus says, I’ve come to fulfill it. But they also saw it as a passage that talks about how when the Messiah comes, he is going to judge. God will judge all those evil, gentile pagan nations all around them. And so they were expecting Jesus to use this passage, not only to say, I’ve come to set you free, but to go on and say, and those Romans, they’ve got it coming. I’ve come to take them out.

It started to dawn on them. Jesus is not your typical rabbi. He doesn’t teach like everybody else. And here he’s not been formally trained. And you know, when we think about it, isn’t he, Joseph’s the carpenter’s son?

I mean, he’s just, he’s one of us. See, in those days, it was customary for a son to follow in his father’s footsteps. If your dad was the milkman, you should probably be a milkman. If your dad is the rabbi, you should probably be the rabbi. And so they’re looking at this and they’re saying, wait, Jesus, he comes from a carpenter’s home.

What exactly is he doing there teaching? Why is he announcing all this? They had seen Jesus since he was a little boy, but they still couldn’t figure him out. Here’s the first thing I want you to see in your notes through the gospel, honor replaces contempt. We’ve heard the phrase familiarity breeds contempt.

And it’s very true in this passage. They thought they already had them figure out. They could not believe, they had so much trouble believing their hometown boy could really be the Messiah. They’re thinking, not just a minute here. We know Jesus.

We saw him since he was a little kid. We saw him running around with his friends. We saw him climb trees. We saw him in his dad’s workshop. Can we really believe what he’s saying here?

What he’s claiming about himself. Now they did have a good impression of Jesus. We know that because Luke has said, earlier that in the favor or in view of men and God, Jesus grew in favor. And so people thought well if him, they liked his courtesy. They saw he was honest in his dealings.

They appreciated the way he was respectful when he listened to elders. But because they were so familiar with Jesus, they struggled to believe he could really be their long awaited Messiah. Could he really be more than just a man? This is really common. When you have come from the same roots as somebody else, it can be very hard to think very highly of them.

Because you think, well, we’re on the same level playing field here. I know where you came from. You came from just down the street. How could you be the savior? What strikes me about all this is that you can be so familiar with Jesus.

You can be convinced in your mind that you know everything you need to know about Jesus and still not really know him at all. That’s what happened with these people in Nazareth. For those of us who grew up in a church, this is a reminder for us that we need to be careful about becoming too familiar if that’s all it is. Familiar with Jesus but not being able to be in awe of him. Having a low view of Jesus because we’re so familiar with him.

Whitney and I used to work in youth ministry. And I remember one time I was talking to a small group of junior high boys. And I got interrupted in the middle and a boy said, why do you keep talking about Jesus dying for our sins? We already know all that. See, for him the gospel was not good news, it was old news.

And that can happen if you begin to get too familiar with Jesus in the sense of, this is a Jesus I already know about. Why do you know he’s our savior? I already know he died for our sins. What’s the big deal? You can become so familiar and lose a sense of awe and expectation of who Jesus is.

The question isn’t do you know all about Jesus? It’s do you know Jesus? Do you love Jesus? Have you given your life to Jesus? Have you trusted him with your eternity?

Are you following him? Are you being changed by him day by day? Is his gospel at work in your heart and life? And so for the people of Nazareth, it was easy to think less of Jesus because they thought they already had him pegged as the carpenter’s son. So often those who think they know you best will have the hardest time giving you honor.

They think they already know everything about you. One of the most challenging things about our culture is that we have lost just about all sense of honor. And so we become this culture of contempt where we feel as Americans as a whole, we feel in time and we are entitled to feel contempt towards those who think differently from us. And our 24/7 news cycle does not help here. It just feeds us with this same narrative and it gets us into thinking you know, this is who is worthless.

This is who is someone I can show contempt for. This is someone who I can be little and who I can mock because they don’t agree with me. They don’t see things that I see. They don’t see the world the way I see it. And so we show contempt.

And before long you have a nation is not just about the culture of the world. But it’s not just about the culture. It’s also in our homes. This can happen right in our homes. The marriage expert John Gottman has been able to predict with up to 94% accuracy whether or not a marriage will end in divorce.

And he says all I need to do is just see that couple interact for just a brief time. That’s what God brings every couple disagrees from time to time. Now what Gottman looks for is signs of contempt. That dismissive tone. That belittling humor that puts the other down.

That sarcastic eye roll. That sneering look. He says those are the signs that contempt is brewing. In the same way our culture encourages us to show contempt for whole segments of society who look and think differently from us. As a friend of the political moral theological spectrum we find it so easy to show contempt and poor contempt on those who are different.

Sin has a way of degrading your view of others. And so you can forget that this person in front of you is a sacred image bearer of God. God holds this person in high esteem simply because they are made in his image. They’re loved by him. The gospel transforms your view of others.

Look at people according to the flesh as the Bible puts it. No longer from this worldly perspective of putting them into a category and then putting them aside because they belong over there and I’m over here. Through the gospel we see people according to their value before God. One thing Luke is showing us throughout his gospel is that Jesus is always looking for ways to connect with those who are the least and the lowest. The despicable tax collector.

Why does he go out of his way to connect with him? The pitiful leper. You got to keep your distance from those guys. Jesus goes up and touches him. The discarded prostitute.

Well she’s gross. You can’t be around her. Not a real prophet. He treated people with honor because that’s what it means to be in the kingdom of God. The people of Nazareth scoffed and showed contempt for Jesus because he was all too familiar to them.

Jesus goes on and says I know you’re going to quote me this proverb. They were saying if you really are the Messiah Jesus, prove it. Prove it. Yeah do a miracle for us. Show us what you can do and then maybe we’ll believe in you.

Jesus elsewhere would give plenty of evidence that he was the long awaited Messiah but he always did things according to his father’s plan. He said that over and over I do things according to what my father wants. Not according to what people are demanding of me. I do it according to what he wants. The simple fact is the people of Nazareth lacked faith.

So secondly in your notes through the gospel faith replaces fear. Faith replaces fear. There’s this universal principle that faith in God’s goodness and love always leads to joy, not fear. If you have a view of God that he is a good and loving father full of joy, full of generosity full of compassion you’re drawn to him. You have joy in him.

Fear and faith are at odds. These people in Nazareth feared the Romans. They were anxious about the future. They were nervous about the pagan surrounding them and overpowering them. They wanted to be free.

And here Jesus was inviting them to experience the kingdom of God. He was saying this is how you can be set free from your sins. This is how you can know the love of the father and find joy in him. And then Jesus shares a couple of stories from the Old Testament that would have caught their attention. Now because they were favorite passages he didn’t go to David and Goliath or Daniel in the lion’s den.

Now he goes to a couple stories that emphasize that God’s love is for Gentiles not just Jewish people. And he does this very intentionally. He first comes to 1 Kings 17. This is about the prophet Elijah. So if you do have your Bibles feel free to turn to 1 Kings 17.

Like Jesus Elijah was a prophet not accepted by his own people. The prophets of the Old Testament talked about sin and judgment a lot so they weren’t super popular. A lot of people did not want to profit around. At this time King Ahab was on the throne in Israel. He had his wife Jezebel and together this idolatrous couple was leading the whole nation into worship of Baal, the Canaanite storm God.

And Elijah confronted them. He said stop worshiping Baal you need to worship the one true God. But like the Nazarenes of Jesus’ day they wanted a God that could control. They wanted a God who answered to them who did things the way they wanted him to do. And Baal you know he wasn’t too strict about morality.

All Baal asked for was you know if you just offer up your children on the altar then I’ll send you rain. No big deal. The real God hates child sacrifice. He hates idolatry. He hates everything that Baal was for.

And so to demonstrate that Baal was not the true God the God of Israel withheld rain for three and a half years. He just turned off the faucet said this will get your attention. No rain for you guys. And Elijah lived out in the wilderness and God sent ravens to him food. So I’m sure it was hard.

It was rough for Elijah. He’s kind of rejected by his people. He’s living out in the desert. But it had to be cool to get DoorDash from Ravens every day. One little perk of the job of being a prophet.

But God tells Elijah to go to Zarephath in Sidon and go to those people. Now Sidon was basically the Mecca of Baal worship. This was ground zero for everything that Elijah had been opposing. And God says Elijah I want you to go there. You know where Jezebel your wicked queen is from?

She’s from Sidon. I want you to go to Sidon. Go talk to those guys. He sends them into pagan central. But there he needs a poor widow who is just literally scraping the very bottom of the barrel.

She’s gotten to her very last bit of groceries. Her fridge is just about empty. She’s getting to the last oil and the flower. And it’s to this widow of all people that Elijah who’s been eating really well actually because of these ravens. He comes up to her and says hey would you mind getting me a cup of water and maybe a slice of toast to go with it?

And this is how she responds in 1 Kings 1712. So things are not looking good for this single mom. She is getting ready to die. She is at the very end of her resources. She has nothing left.

She is hopeless and desperate. And she’s got a little boy. She has to watch him die. And yeah I’d like you to make me some food. Could you do that?

See without faith in the living God you’ll always be ensnared by fear of death. The poor widow is living in fear. That’s all she has. So how does Elijah respond? He says do not fear verse 13.

Go and do as you have said but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me and then make something for you and your son. You imagine the boldness of a statement. Here is this prophet. She doesn’t know him from Adam. He’s a prophet of the other team.

He came from Israel and apparently he’s been rejected by his own nation. He’s come over here and now I’ve got hardly anything left. We’ve got one more meal to go and then we’re going to die. And now he’s asking me to make him a cake. This is beyond bold.

Elijah says if you do this, Yahweh the God of Israel promises that you won’t out of flower and oil. Your jars will always have more as long as the drought remains. And amazingly she believes them. It says she goes and does exactly as Elijah says. She makes him the cake and there’s still more and then there’s more the oil and the flower never run out.

They go from being skin and bones to now they’re eating at this endless buffet. Their resources don’t run out. It’s a miracle. But here’s the thing to notice. She had zero proof that God was going to keep his word before obeying.

And the proof is in the fact that Elijah said you need to make me the cake first and then you can have all you want. You’ve got to believe. You’ve got to take that step of faith even though you haven’t yet seen the miracle. And she responded in faith. She was desperate but she believed.

And Jesus’ point in sharing this story is even a poor gentile pagan widow had the faith to embrace a prophet of God. And here’s Jesus in Nazareth, his hometown, the ultimate prophet and Messiah and they’re rejecting him. They don’t want him. They want to see a miracle before obedience. But that’s not the end for this widow.

Suddenly her son gets ill and then dies anyway. And in verse 18 she says That’s not necessarily the case. If you belong to Jesus, God is not out to punish you for your sins. He’s just not. He’s your father.

He may discipline you as a good father but he will not condemn you. There is no condemnation because Jesus already took your condemnation at the cross. But then God uses Elijah to miraculously bring this boy back to life proving he’s not like Baal who demands child sacrifice. He brings the child back to life. It’s a preview of the resurrection.

The son comes back to life and then she makes this statement of faith. I know, I know that you are a prophet of Yahweh. She expresses her faith. But these other people in Nazareth, they’re rejecting their prophet. They’re rejecting their king.

They should be saying, Jesus, you’re the Messiah we’ve waited for. How can we support you and your kingdom mission? We’re here for you, Jesus. But instead they’re skeptical. And what God in the way was pride.

Pride is Jesus shows from the next story. And your notes through the gospel, humility replaces pride. Instead of humbly welcoming Jesus, Nazareth was proud and skeptical. They didn’t think he had what it takes. He wanted to see him give miracles on demand when they wanted him.

When I share the gospel with someone who’s not a Christian, if they show even a vague interest in what I’m saying, I’ll often say, if you really want to know Jesus, don’t just take my word for it. Go and read the gospels yourself because that’s where you’ll meet him, the real Jesus. But I’ll tell them there’s two ways you can approach the Bible. You can come do it humbly asking God to reveal himself to you, or you can come with a prove it to me attitude that says, God, if you do a miracle for me, exactly as I demand, then I’ll follow you. There’s two ways, but God doesn’t meet us on our terms.

The Bible says, God resists the proud. He holds them back. God resists the proud, but he shows grace to the humble. So if you want to know God, meet him humbly on his terms. He said, this is what the Messiah has to do before we accept him.

And so Jesus shares another story, this time from 2 Kings 5. 2 Kings 5 is where we learn about the Syrian general, Naaman, who has leprosy. This was during the time of the prophet, Elisha. So we’re just talking about Elijah. Now we got Elisha, his protege.

They were really creative with names back then. He was a man of valor and courage. If there was a village that needed to be conquered, he did that. He could do whatever he wanted until he faced something that he couldn’t defeat. It says in 2 Corinthians 5, he was a mighty man of valor, but he had leprosy.

And God does miracles through him. Maybe he could heal you. He says, look, I will give you all this money if you will get me healed. The message comes with 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold, and 10 changes of clothing. In modern terms, that’s about $3.1 million.

He’s a wealthy man, and he’s used to getting what he wants with money, and he’s willing to pay whatever it takes to get healed. This would be like if Jeff Bezos had a skin disease, and he’s willing to send $3.1 million to a nation that’s in conflict with the U.S. And he says, I’m willing to give you all this money if only I can be healed. This is how a lot of people think.

They imagine God is willing to heal you if you pay enough money. And then he’ll show compassion for you. This is how you can spot a fraud, actually, if he says, God will heal you, but first you got to send 10 payments of $99.99 to this address. A true prophet of God never demands money for healing. Never.

We don’t see that in the Bible. Because God is a God of grace. He doesn’t need money to heal you. Some people today think that if they just throw enough money at their problems, that will solve it. Just pay for whatever it takes.

Just throw the money at it. I don’t want to deal with it personally. Just throw money at it, and then that will be fine. God wants our hearts. See, Naaman is used to getting what he wants.

He assumes Elisha works for the king. And so he’s just this prophet who does miracles on demand, but Elisha doesn’t work for the king. He works for God. You can’t buy him. Elisha hears about this, and he tells the Israelite king, you know what?

Send Naaman down to me. I’ll take care of it. So Naaman, the mighty general, shows up at Elisha’s house, and he comes with all his chariots, this imposing force. He’s got his whole security detail with him. And Elisha says to his servant, go down and tell Naaman, “Go wash in the Jordan River, “verse 10, seven times, “and your flesh shall be restored.”

And Naaman is furious. He’s offended. He thought that Elisha himself would come and come down and wave a magic wand or whatever, or say some little chant, or maybe push him to the ground and heal him on the spot. He says, “The Jordan River, “I’m not gonna go dip in that muddy Israelite river. “We’ve got some clean rivers up in my nation.

“Why don’t you just send me up there?” But God’s like, “Naman, I want you to learn a little humility. “I want you to do things my way.” Naaman, you’ve been used to everybody coming and doing things according to your expectations. Now it’s time to learn God has some experience.

So Naaman is angry, he storms away, he’s ready to go back to Syria, still has a leper, but finally his servant talks some sense into him, thankfully, says, “You know what, Naaman, “if you had been told to go “and conquer a great city, do something amazing, “you would’ve done it if it meant you were gonna be healed. “But now that you’re asked to do this far easier thing, “dipping in the Jordan River seven times, “now you’re not gonna do it?” He’s gonna believe or submits to baptism. Naaman’s submitted to go down into the water. Seven times he does it, just as he was told, and he’s healed.

His skin comes out looking brand new, just like those moisturizer commercials, brand new skin. And what Naaman did was a lesson for the people of Nazareth. Because in Nazareth, they were too proud to believe that God was for other people. They were too self-righteous to admit that they needed grace. See, Naaman is a picture of someone surrendering to Jesus Christ.

Because what you see with Naaman is this mighty, proud general who goes down to the river and he has to take off his armor. And he has to expose that leperous skin and then go down into the water. And in the same way, when you come to Jesus Christ, you have to take off that self-righteousness that says, “I don’t need a savior, “I could do this on my own, “I don’t have that need of grace.” You take that off and you expose yourself and send to God’s cleansing grace and then you’re washed clean by the blood of Jesus. And it says that Naaman’s skin came out looking like a little child.

And in the same way, Jesus said to enter the kingdom, you have to become like a little child. In the gospel, humility replaces pride. So think of this, Jesus told these stories to a proud and self-righteous crowd. They were hearing Isaiah 61 being preached and they were expecting Jesus to go into how God was against the Gentiles. And instead, Jesus starts telling these stories about how God is actually for the Gentiles, not just the Jewish people.

This went over like a lead balloon. The whole synagogue begins boiling with rage. See, for a very long time, they had made assumptions about God. They believed God is for good Jews and he’s against bad Gentiles. That’s the way the world works, that’s just how it is.

But Jesus came and he turns their world upside down, or maybe right side up. And he says, “No, God is for all people. “God loves all people.” He made it clear God isn’t just going to endorse their nationalist ambitions after all. And because they were so angry, so filled with rage, they tried to kill him.

And they take him to the brow of the cliff and they’re ready to shove him off the edge. And suddenly, he escapes. It says he just walks through their midst, walks right past them. Was this a miracle? Or maybe, maybe someone realized, you know what, as they’re watching Jesus, they’re looking at his presence, they’re recognizing all the things he said, they couldn’t go through with it.

Who knows, who knows? But one thing we know is that in that world, in this world that’s filled with rage, Jesus came with a message of grace. Where all these people are angry, people are ready to show contempt and bitterness is rising, Jesus came with grace. Through the gospel, grace replaces rage. So the question for you is, what assumptions about God do you have?

What assumptions do you have? For the people of Nazareth, they had long thought they knew what God was like. They believed God was a, only for the right righteous, only for Jewish people. And Jesus came with a different message. In fact, Jesus went out of his way to welcome people from all over.

You know, why is it that Jesus had to go through Samaria? He had to talk to that Samaritan woman who was rejected even by her own community. Why is it that Jesus said things like this centurion, this Roman centurion has more faith than any of my fellow Jews? When he told parables, he often had a tax collector or a Samaritan as the example to follow. Jesus was often found among the outsiders, the misfits, and the sinners.

It was those who thought of themselves as morally superior that were so offended by God, so offended by Jesus. Jesus told those who saw themselves as the good guys that tax collectors and prostitutes were entering the kingdom of God before them. Just imagine the offense that statement would have on them. You’re saying, what? Who is before me?

And their view, Jesus was always hanging out with the wrong people. All the way, even at his death, in fact, he’s hanging there on a cross between two thieves. As if to underscore the point, Jesus came for sinners. That’s what he was doing on that cross. Salvation is not something we can earn.

God is far too holy for that. God himself had to go to the cross. He had to bear the punishment we deserve for us to be saved. And when you know that God did all this for you in grace, it changes how you see other people. When you know that God is not just for Jewish people, but also for Gentiles, not just for those who see themselves as righteous, but also for those who know their sinners.

When you know that God is that kind of God that changes how you view others. So here’s the question I’ll leave you with, who are you most tempted to despise or disregard? Who is it that you are quick to throw into the same category as a bunch of others, and it’s easy for you to just dismiss them? And how does the gospel transform your view of them? Let’s pray together.

Father, I thank you that you are a God of grace. Thank you that you did not come to just give us peace. Stamp of approval to our plans and our ideas and our assumptions. Thank you that you came with a message that was radical. That was scandalous even because it’s a message of grace.

Lord, I pray that even this morning we would recognize our great need for you that whatever paltry form of righteousness we have is not going to cut it. It is not what we need. We need the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I pray that you would make that so clear to each heart this morning so that we would embrace by faith the living Lord, the crucified and risen one, that Jesus who is King and who will rule and reign forever and ever always. I pray this all in his mighty name.

Amen.

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