The Messiah - Luke 4:16-21

May 3, 2026   The Messiah - Luke 4:16-21 NASB

16 And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. 17 And the [a]book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the [b]book and found the place where it was written,

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,

19 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

20 And He closed the [c]book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your [d]hearing.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Did you appreciate the Grace Christian School and the presentation this morning? Was that a blessing to you? We are going to finish this morning by having a communion, Lord's Supper. We're going to be doing this together as the body of Christ. I wanted to use a scripture that we've we're at progressing through the Gospel of Luke. I wanted to talk about that just for a few moments to prepare our hearts to come to the table. If you are a visitor with us this morning or you've never participated in communion with us as a church family, I just wanted to start by letting you know kind of how we do things here. Everybody has their own way, their own style, their own traditions, and some of them are better than others. But how we do things here is uh in a few moments I'm going to have the deacons uh come forward and they'll they'll have the elements and they'll we'll pass them out um individually. We'll we'll start um as we're we're passing out, we'll start with the bread, and then everyone will hold the bread uh together, and then we will take uh part of it together, and then we'll do the same thing with the Jews. Uh we don't ask that you be in covenant community with us as the body of Christ here at First Baptist, but we do ask, out of respect for the body of Christ Universal, that you are a member of the family of God and you have accepted Christ as your Savior, which was the Bible talks about being born again and following Him in New Testament baptism. So we're not saying that you have to belong to this fellowship, uh, but we are asking you to belong to the fellowship uh with the body of Christ. Now, part of what we're going to be doing as we we celebrate communion is the very last phrase. And I think the the the uh cover on the front there on the on the table is covering it up. But I remember as a child looking up and seeing those words, this do in long word of me. And I remember thinking, I wonder what that I see the M's and the Rs, but I'm not really sure what all that is. Um but this do in remembrance of me. See, I grew up, I learned how to read, so it was it worked out really well. Uh but as I'm I'm looking at that, that's really what this is about. This is taking these these elements, this this bread and this cup, and we are remembering, glorifying him. So in light of that, what I'd like you to do, if if you've got your Bibles, we are in the Gospel of Luke. We've been we started at the beginning of the year, we're gonna be working our way through Luke and Acts. Turn with me to Luke chapter 4, we're at the point in the in the uh gospel record of Dr. Luke telling us how how things came about. We're at the point where Jesus is beginning his ministry and he goes into the synagogue and as he is reading the scripture, and that's what I want to focus on just for a few moments this morning. So if you're with me, uh Luke chapter 4. If you don't have a copy of God's word, I encourage you there should be Bibles in the pew backs in front of you. There should be people sitting around who have a Bible. It could be all sorts of things you could use, but I'd love you to read that along with me. I'd ask you to stand with me in honor of reading God's word. Luke chapter 4, beginning in verse 16. Luke chapter 4, beginning in verse 16. This is this is what the the word of God says. Speaking of of Jesus. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as it was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and he opened the book and found the place where it was written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Would you pray with me? Lord, I thank you for what you done and who you are, and I pray that we would celebrate that this morning. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you. Be seated. Just give you a little bit of context, just a little bit of idea of what we have looked at and where we have gone in the Gospel of Luke. If you've still got your Bible in front of you, and I hope you do, and if you don't, I I wish you would uh in in days to come, because this matters so much of having the Word of God with you. But if you just go back to the beginning of the Gospel of Luke in the very first chapter, as we started talking about what this message is and why the doctor, Dr. Luke, was writing this in the very first chapter in verse 1, he says, Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us. So he's speaking to believers, he's speaking to the church, and he says, I've I've done my research, I've I've done my study, I've talked to the witnesses. He says in verse two, just as they were handed down to us by those whom from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Verse three, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught. So just to be clear, Luke is writing this gospel. There's four gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, but here in the Gospel of Luke, he's writing this with the sole purpose of those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, understanding the story more deeply, more fully, so that they can appreciate and appropriate who God is. So he says, I've worked I've gotten all of this together. In verse three, he says, I've written it for you in consecutive order. In verse four, so that you would know the exact truth. And so here is where he begins. In chapter one, he starts to talk about this coming. Someone, someone is on the scene, someone is about to arrive. He starts in a temple service with with uh a priest and and his wife, and they haven't been able to have any children. And so there's there's this this this angel, Gabriel, he shows up and he says, You're going to have a baby. And and and Zacharias, he he has trouble believing that. Elizabeth, not so much. And as they're as they're going through that, they're saying that he is going to be the forerunner. John is going to come and he's going to tell about the one who is to come, this, this Messiah, this anointed one, this one who is going to give us everything that we've been anticipating for as the people of God. And so through chapter one, you see the story of John coming, of how he is going to be the forerunner and tell about Jesus. And then the angel comes again and talks to this young girl, Mary. Same thing, but he's coming. And Mary gets excited about I'm your servant, I'm honored to be a part of this. Behold the bond slave of the Lord. And then you've got these these guys out in the field, and then some shepherds and angels, and born for you a savior who is Christ the Lord, and glory to God and the highest. And you've got you've got this, these elderly folks in the temple area. Uh Simeon, who is incredibly righteous, says, Now I can die because I've seen the Messiah. And then you've got um uh Anna, who is the prophetess, and spoke of of the redemption of the people of Jerusalem, and then John the Baptist himself in chapter three going through what he did and how he proclaimed the message of John coming, and then maybe the greatest of all in chapter three of the baptism of Jesus, and as soon as Jesus is baptized, heaven is opened and Holy Spirit descendants descends in bodily form like a dove. Voice came out of heaven, you are my beloved son, in you I am well pleased. All this pointing to Jesus. And now, chapter four. Instead of prophets, instead of angels, instead of righteous people, instead of the the common ordinary shepherds, Jesus is gonna speak for himself. He's gonna tell us. We don't have to get it from anyone else, we don't have to hear it from anywhere else. It's good witness, it's true, it's all reliable, but now we've got it straight from him, who he is. So beginning in verse 16, Luke chapter 4, verse 16. Jesus came to Nazareth. It was his hometown. He'd been in Capernaum, he had been doing miracles, signs, and wonders, he'd been preaching the kingdom. Repent, for the kingdom has come. He's done all of that, and and word of him is coming to his local family here. He comes and says, where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. This is what they did in the synagogue. This synagogue is local assemblies, local in our vernacular, local churches. They would come and they would have this set order where they would read for portions of the prophets and the law. And here, as he's entering the synagogue, he is given the the honor. He's the local boy done good. He's got the reputation. The hometown boy now is is back. They want him to say something because he's got this this this following and all these people talking about him. So he gets to stand up, which, by the way, this stand up in order of reading God's word, it's not new to us. It's been going on for a long time. So everybody is standing up, and he stands up to read the word of God. Verse 17, book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. So as he he takes the word of God, he takes the scripture, he opened the book and found the place where it was written. Now, just to be clear, this is not coincidence, happenstance, this is not something that just kind of happened. He knew exactly what he was doing, he knew exactly what he was saying, he knew exactly who he is, and he tells us in verse 18. Luke chapter 4, verse 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Right there. As he begins to read from the book of Isaiah, you're in a synagogue with all of the people that you grew up with. I don't know how many of you grew up in a small town, but everybody knows everybody, and they're related to everybody, so you don't say nothing bad about anybody. And he is he is with his home folk. He is with the ones that that probably influenced and taught him many things over the years. And now they're standing there, and uh they're sitting there listening to him as he's standing, reading the scripture, and as he is reading it and in honor of what he has got in his hand, he goes to this passage in Isaiah, and I guarantee you, without any shadow of a doubt, that as soon as he started reading, the ears started to perk up. Because this is Isaiah, and this is Isaiah chapter 61, and this is Isaiah chapter 61, where the prophet is speaking of the one who is to come. We've had all of the witnesses all through the four chapters talking about the Messiah, the anointed one, the one who was going to come and be the one to redeem Israel, to bring about all the fruition, all of the hopes, all of the promises, all the things that God said, I'm going to do this through this man. And now they're listening. Jesus, he he's talking about the one. Good. I hope he's got some good things to say. Maybe he's met him, maybe he's seen them, maybe he has some idea of when he's going to come. And so he starts to read. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. They're listening. Okay, this is this is good, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

unknown 11:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Preach, Jesus, preach. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of the sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. Good, good. Give us give us something. Teach us, teach us. Verse 20. And he closed the book and he gave it back to the attendant, and he sat down. Now, when he sat down, it's not like if I were to sit down, you'd think we he's done. When he sits down, that's the the the seat of authority, that's the teaching position. So when he's the Sermon on the Mount, he sat down. When we talk about universities today today, we have the chair of such and such because it's sitting a position of authority. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Everybody, okay, good. He's gonna tell us something good. Verse 21. And he began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. What? Today, all you've been waiting for, all you've been anticipating, all you've been hoping for. Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Now, what we know as we read the passage further, and we'll talk about this in weeks to come, is they weren't real happy with that message. But you and I come back to the beginning, where he says in verse 18, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. We know that the Spirit descended upon him at baptism. We know that the Father said, This is my son, my beloved son, and you I am well pleased. We understand who he is, because we have the privilege of looking from the outside in. We get to see the whole revelation. We see the word of truth. We have no questions, no doubts, no problems, because we can see it and see that he is who he said he is. But as we look at this, consider what Isaiah is writing and why he is writing it. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. And what happens oftentimes is we get to passages like this, and we say, Well, okay, I'm not necessarily poor, I'm not rich, but I'm not poor, so I guess I guess this doesn't really apply. No, no, no, no, no. Hang on. He has appointed me to preach the gospel, the good news, to the poor, to those who do not have, to those who cannot have without me providing the wealth of which they cannot have unless I give it to them. I am going to tell you how you can receive fullness when you are running on empty. I'm going to give you life when all you have without Jesus is death. I'm going to provide for you the poor in the spirit, blessed are the poor in spirit, because I am going to give you what you could never get in this world on your own in man-made systems. You will not be able to be rich enough toward yourself to be rich toward God. And what he's doing is he's unfolding this. He's saying there's going to be there's going to be these categories, there's going to be these areas where I'm going to come in and I am going to bless in a way that you can't even begin to understand actually until you even start to dive into all that I'm going to be giving you. So go through it. Anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, verse 18. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives. This isn't just about Babylonian captivity. This isn't just about being in prison. This is talking about a relationship that we have. The scriptures talk about whether we are in slavery to sin or we are in slavery to righteousness. It talks about whether or not we have an ability to be free in Christ, in whom He sets all free, or whether or not we are so captivated, we are enslaved, we are addicted to the things of this world. Where we realize that we don't even do what we want to do, and the things we want to do, we can't even do those but by the grace of God. So we realize that our captivity, our enslavement is desperately in need of someone to break the chains, someone to get us out of this mess. Because we see that in the midst of all that's happening, we may look good on the outside, we may smell good and talk good and live good, and people think we're okay, but we're the ones that live with ourselves. We're the ones that know the depth and the corruption and the depravity. We're the ones that know what happens on the inside where no one else can see. He says, He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. See the thing about being blind is you don't know what it is to be blind truly until you can see. You don't know what it is truly to be clean until you are cleaned. You don't know truly what it is to have that salvation, that that renewal, that recreation, that metamorphosis, that transformation until you're actually transformed. He says, I've come to give you that. Yes, he healed physical blindness. Yes, he he helped those who were lame and crippled. He did all of that and so much more. But it doesn't stop there. That's just the beginning. Recovery of sight to the blind, and to set free those who are oppressed, to set free, last part of verse 18, to set free those who are oppressed. Oppressed by the systems of the world, oppressed by religious tradition, oppressed by family expectations, political expectations, oppressed by people telling us what we ought to do and how we ought to do it and fit this mold or go along with this system or this this political agenda, whatever it is, oppressed because we can't do it and we don't know how to do it his way. This oppression. But then verse 19 to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. You see, when we come to the table in just a few moments, you're not coming as someone who has got your life together and you're just celebrating that with everybody else. Look at us, we're doing so great. You're coming as someone who desperately needs the wealth and the riches of Jesus Christ. You're coming as someone who needs to be released and has been set free from the bondage of sin. You're coming as someone who once was blind, but now you see, once you were lost, but now you are found. But I think my favorite part, I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but here you go. My favorite part is verse 19. Because what he's saying in Isaiah 61, verse 19, I mean Isaiah 61 referencing in verse 19 of Luke chapter 4, he's talking about the year of Jubilee. Can I, just for a second, then we're gonna go to the table. Can I talk to you about the year of Jubilee? Have you heard about this? It's really kind of cool. You see, back in the day, long time ago, long, long time ago, God set up this system, this economic world uh economy. And he said, This is this is how I want things to work for you. You see, you belong, God speaking, to the children of Israel. You belong to me. You don't get to own stewards of your name, your family, your clan, your piece of land. It's just something you get to enjoy. I want you to have a Sabbath year, and I want you to, I want you to not do uh the fields, I don't want you to plow, I want you to let the fields rest. I want that those fields to be able to produce better, so you'll have a seventh year. And they they came back and said, Lord, that's gonna be rough. How are we gonna eat in the eighth year if we don't plant in the seventh year?

SPEAKER_02 19:51

He said, Don't you worry.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

It's gonna be great. But he says, now there's something else. Every seventh seventh, and those of you who love math, good for you, but here we go. Seven times seven, forty-nine, every 50th year, after seven sevens, we're gonna have a year of Jubilee. And this is what we're gonna do. You, as the people of God, through those 49 years, and I think we got it average that most of us are gonna get maybe one Jubilee. We'll be really fortunate if we get two, but here we go. Every 49 years you're gonna sell and buy, you're gonna live and die, you're gonna do your own thing thing. And sometimes you're gonna have great crops, and sometimes you're gonna go through famine, sometimes you're gonna tribes and your family, and your culture, and your cities. What's gonna happen is that there are gonna be times when you really you need to sell something, part of your land that God has stewarded to you, and you're gonna sell it. But something special is going to happen on that 50th year. You see, what I want you to do, whenever you sell your land or you sell yourself into slavery, or whatever it is, I want you to keep in mind that the 50th year is coming. Because something's gonna happen on that 50th year, that year of Jubilee, where all your debts are going to be wiped away. You sold yourself, you're free. You lost your land, take it back. Even to the point where God told them if you're selling your land, count how many years are left until the year of Jubilee. 20 versus 10 versus 3 versus 2. Because you're really not selling the land, you're selling the number of years of harvest.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

So what's gonna happen is no matter ugly things happen around us.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

There will be a day where God will push the giant.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

The year of Jubilee has arrived.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Every need, every spiritual blessing, everything that we need contained within this one person, fully God, fully man.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

And as we come to this table and do this in remembrance of him, we are remembering how I needed him, and his mercy and grace met me right where I am. I couldn't live without him. I couldn't thrive without him.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

He spilled his blood. There's the cup. He broke his body. There's the bread. He did that so that I could have a new covenant with him and I can be in a relationship with him. And according to his promise, it's not my work, according to his faithfulness, not mine, according to what he says, as I'm taking this cup and I'm taking this bread. I'm not celebrating these two elements. I'm celebrating the Jesus that these two elements represent. And I will never, ever, ever be fast away. I will never, ever, ever be lost. I'm his. I belong to him, and he belongs to me. I'm in Jesus, means that means we have this union, this communion, that's followed stuff. That's what we're celebrating this morning. If you don't know this, don't leave this building without talking to someone, a pastor, a teacher, a deacon, a brother, or a sister in Christ, someone give us this church to tell you what it means to repent of your sins and trust in Jesus as your Savior. Because that's why we get to celebrate communion. Let's do Lord's Supper and then we'll be done. Historically, biblically, it's the highlight of the body of Christ. It's how we celebrate who we are in Jesus. It had such priority in the body over the history of the church that they would say, I want to save the best for last. Folks, this is the best for last. Because we get to be with him. He who identified himself as the Messiah, the anointed one, the one who came with the Spirit of the Lord upon him to tell us the truth, the good news of how desperately, desperately we need him. Partake of the table. Before I do that, I'm going to ask if the deacons would please make your way to the back. And we need you so bad. And I thank you that as brothers and sisters we get to come to the table. We get to do this in remembrance of you. Lord, I pray for the individual who has come to this room. And maybe the worries of this world are starting to choke a little bit. Maybe the feetfulness of wealth, a number of things, are getting us off topic, off focus of you. I pray, Lord, that you would clear the air, you would bring illumination of clarity, and we would worship you in spirit and in truth. I pray, Lord, that the next few moments wouldn't be a rite or a ritual, but it would be an act of worship. Because in you there's true freedom. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. We thank you. Thank you for what you did for us, and we thank you for the sacrifice, and we pray that we would honor you as we partake. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. For the shedding of your blood, remission of our sins. Thank you for your sacrifice and help us to appreciate, but also to glorify you for it. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Would you stand with me, please, as we as we miss this song?