Today on Growing Through Grace. It was bad enough to be told they were poor and blind and captive and oppressed. But now they're being told they were less spiritual and less wise than a Gentile woman in a Syrian community. And that was more than me today. I love growing in your grace. You are your end on me. And all that I do want, love will keep me strong. I love being in your grace. You're listening to Growing Through Grace with Pastor Jacobieland, a Morning Star Christian chapel in Whittier, California. And as we finish up the week, we'll get back to our studies from last time in Luke chapter 4 verses 21 through 30. As Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth begins to break down the wall of separation when he emphasizes Elijah ministering to a Gentile woman. Pastor Jack will show us the results of this and then he'll move on to verses 31 through 44 with Luke's account of a day in the life of Jesus. Here's our teacher with today's lesson. I think as they listen to Jesus their anger just must have soared. This story of the leper and name and the leper is found in 2 Kings chapter 5. If you remember the story, he was a Syrian commander of an army. He was sent by the king of Syria to Israel because in the king's house was a Jewish slave girl. And she said to the king, if name and would just go to Israel, we have a God in Israel who heals and delivers the leper. And she sent him in the hopes that he would find cure after all being a leper was an incurable disease. So the commander is sent by the king and he arrives in Israel to run into the king of Israel who has no faith at all. And he says to himself, this is a plot. They're just trying to draw me in. Fortunately, Elisha had heard about him's visit and said, look, send him to me. And he'll know that there's a prophet in Israel and a God as well. When he arrived at Elisha's house, Elisha didn't come out to speak to him. He just sent his servant. And that made the commander angry. He didn't treat me like the class that I am. But the servant says, the prophet says, go dip in the Jordan River seven times and you'll be clean. And it just infuriated him. Who does he think he is? Not even giving me the due respect. And then I'm going to go dip in this dirty river. We have cleaner rivers at home. There's no way in the world I'm doing that. Couldn't he just come over and talk to me? Couldn't he pray over me? Couldn't he say something? What's wrong with this guy? How disrespectful? Turned around and angered to leave. But one of his servants who loved him said, look, if he'd asked you to do some phenomenal thing in your power, wouldn't you have done it to get well? You'd have given anything. He's not asking for anything. He's just asking for you to trust what the Lord has said and go do what he asked you to do. And he was persuaded because of his illness and because of the impossibility of his condition to give it a try. He couldn't heal himself. He could go home as sick as when he arrived. But he realized that there was nothing he could do. He was at the end of himself, all right, I'll do what he told them. I'll follow. Makes no sense to me. It seems very, you know, below me if you will, beneath me. But I'll do what he says because my need is greater than my pride. And so he went down into the water. And he dipped once and twelve and two and four and six. And by the time he dipped for the seventh time he came out, absolutely clean. He went back to Elisha's house and stood outside. And he said to the servant, you go tell him that there's no God except the God of Israel. And to him I'm going to serve. But he is the same example of someone whose need was far greater than his pride or his position or the pride he had in his position, like the Jews in Nazareth. They were just not willing to be humbled. But if you find yourself in need, a great need, that need will humble you. If you're, is your pride worth leprosy the rest of your life? No, it's not. In faith God healed him. Both Naaman and the widow took steps of faith contrary to their own rationale. And God honored their trust because it was in response to a) awareness of their need and b) obedience to his direction. Both of them had far less to go on than the folks in Nazareth who had seen Jesus and heard about him from neighbors and friends. Both Naaman and the widow found difficulty obeying in faith. But the consideration to do anything else was worse. One more meal and I'm dead. Walk away and I'm back into this condition I've been in all of my life. Nothing has changed. Both of them came in faith because they first saw their need and were overwhelmed by it. Which is why Jesus was able to say on that feast day there in John 7. If anyone is thirsty you can come to me and drink and I'll give you life. But you have to be thirsty and they weren't thirsty in Nazareth. And unfortunately a lot of times people aren't thirsty today. It was bad enough to be told they were poor and blind and captive and oppressed. But now they're being told they were less spiritual and less wise than a Gentile woman and a Syrian commander. And that was more than they could take. It should have shook them to the core. The lesson is obvious and powerful. It was delivered by the Lord out of love and a desire to save. It produced in them the worst of responses. Anger, bitterness and murderous thought. We read in verse 28. So all of those in the synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath and they rose up and they thrust him out of the city. They led him to the brow of the hill upon which the city was built. And they might throw him down the cliff but he passed through their midst and he went his way. Apparently the crowd ended the service that morning. No benediction, no final song, no dismissal. They just couldn't take it anymore. This was Jesus whom they had known all of their lives. They'd never seen him do a wrong thing. He was one of the most loving and winsome people in the neighborhood. Everyone spoke well of him. But when he now cuts through their religious facade all they can do is think about killing him. And that on the Sabbath from church to murder how zealous people can be for a lie while unwillingly setting aside the truth. And you see it today. They wanted to see a miracle. So he showed them one. He disappeared. The whole town couldn't throw him off a cliff. He left them literally disappeared from their side. We read in Matthew that because of this attitude in Nazareth he could do very few works of miracles here because of the unbelief that he continued to run into. We know from the Scriptures he would return here at least once more. Matthew chapter 13, Mark chapter 6. And when he came back here the result was exactly the same. It was still that defiant kind of "I don't want to hear from you anymore." For now Jesus heads north a little bit around the lake. He goes to Capernaum. He would make it his hometown. He would pay his taxes there. It would be known as a place that he would have his headquarters in Galilee. More miracles would be done in that one city than anywhere else in the gospels. The Lord found a willing, at least, city for a time. In short order here we are presented with the gospel in verses 18 and 19 with our Savior in verse 21 with his words of life in verse 22 and then with the response of the people. In verse 15 they were enamored by him. His kindness is his approach. They all waited to see him. They all gathered to hear. But by the time you get to verse 28 they'd heard enough. In between are two examples of a man and a woman who in great need place their faith in God and were delivered. Always the case. You want a miracle? Come to the Lord. You want God to do a work in your life? Surrender yourself to him. Don't let the enviable heritage of background or church tradition or pride keep you from faith in Christ, which is the only way of life. That's all God's looking for. All that other stuff won't wash. He's the only way. And may the Lord continue to prove his claims in your life. And may you be the kind of witness around the people that you know in the world that says look what God has done in my life. Be one of those 2 Corinthians 6 kind of people that accurately reflect who he is and what he can do in a surrendered life. Jesus was certainly up against it, wasn't he? But so are you. And yet God still works. He got to you. He can get to somebody else through you if you're willing. Luke chapter 4 verse 31. We just want to go from verse 31 down through verse 44 at the end. And this is a report from Luke on one day in the life of Jesus. Just one day continuously from morning to afternoon to evening to very early the next morning. One thing for sure. Jesus didn't waste a lot of time. He was at it and working hard and this was a Sabbath day as well. Here's the morning in the morning at verse 31. And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee and he was teaching there on the Sabbaths. Capernaum was a place that Jesus spent much of his first year of ministry in from what we can gather. In fact, these two cities, Nazareth and Capernaum really show us the opposite responses. In Capernaum, many people believed in Jesus. They responded to what he said and the great works that he did in Nazareth. We read in other places very little that God could do because of the unbelief of the people. The proof was there, but they just didn't respond. A simple lesson that we can certainly learn is that Jesus will go and work where he's welcome. If you want to welcome him into your life, if you want to have a desire to see the Lord work, he'll work. He loves to work in your heart, but he doesn't really go where he's not wanting. He'll call, he'll knock, he'll stand at the door, but there's really little that he can do. You know, the old whosoever will is whosoever will. If you will, he will. And I find that that truth so often is exemplified even in the church. You know, we see a lot of people in church that seem to grow every week and they just come to church hungry. They fall in love with the Lord and God is doing great things. And right next I'm sitting in a person who's been in church every week but has no life. They just seem to die on the vine. Some believe God's word and they go out and they're obedient to it and as a result, God brings much fruit to bear in their lives and lots of joy. And the other guy sitting right next to him bitter and lacking a real love for the Lord really doesn't think obedience is such a big deal and just kind of attends out of habit. And there's no fruit and yet they hear the same sermon. They sit in the same service, they sing the same songs. They know the same people. They're taught God's word. God's word is able to bring a life. It's able to bless you. It's able to give you the peace that you desire. But it always depends on your response. And these two cities are pretty interesting. Nazareth is hometown where they knew him the best. He could do the least. And a place like Capernaum, the people began to flock to him in faith. It all depends on a response. Look at the two thieves on the cross. Same sin, same fate, same Lord, equidistant from them. Only one made him. And the other did. Look at Judas among twelve who got to see the inner workings of Jesus' ministry. Watched him minister and teach. He heard every sermon. And yet he went south while everyone else went north. Jesus here goes to Capernaum. He'd been there before. It was a city where he spent more time than any other city in the Galilee during these three and a half years. He did more miracles. The majority of his miracles were done in this city. It was located on the northwest shores of the Sea of Galilee. In Jesus' day it was a very thriving city. He had three major highways that passed through it. The Lord made it his home, his headquarters, for nearly eighteen months. Before he kind of left in that last year kind of trudged slowly but surely towards Jerusalem. Matthew in chapter nine calls Capernaum his city. Matthew tells us in chapter seventeen that Jesus paid his taxes in this city. This was a place he had called home. So here we read that Jesus went back down to Capernaum down only in the sense of geographically going around the lake, if you will. And he was teaching there in their synagogues. In lieu of his experience at Nazareth, I might have thought twice about that. The last time I taught in the synagogue someone tried to throw me off a cliff. I don't think I'm welcome here. But when you're called, you're not discouraged by responses, you just continue on. So Jesus setbacks don't slow him down. He is faithful to his calling. The Word of God doesn't go out void. So the Lord has an opportunity weekly to go and be a part of the services here in the synagogue and teach as people come to worship. By the way, if you've been to Israel with us, you know. But if you haven't been, Capernaum is one of our great fun stops. I look forward to it every year because the synagogue that is standing, at least the foundation and the lower walls of the synagogue are the building of this synagogue. It has lasted through time and made it that way. It was built by a Roman centurion, according to Luke 7, because he loved the Jews and wanted to serve them. You will find Jewish emblems on the columns, although the architecture is completely Roman. It is, like I said, one of our favorite places. Later, Luke will tell us that it was here at the synagogue. Luke, you know, I think it's Mark chapter 5. We're gyrus. You're right. Remember, came one of the rulers of the synagogue and they came to Jesus and they said, "Could you come to my house, my daughter is sick, and would you heal her?" And you might remember the story that as Jesus was heading for his house and the daughter was critical, that that woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus' garment and stopped the crowd and Jesus stopped to talk to her, and I'm sure gyrus is going, "Come on, really? I can't stop now." But as Jesus ministered to that woman with the issue of blood, one of the people from the family of gyrus came and said, "Don't bother the mastery of your daughter's death." And he just was so disappointed in the Lord and said, "Look, look, just believe me." And they went home and the Lord raised her from the dead, but that was also in this synagogue. So the Lord went to Capernaum. He made it his hometown. He was teaching on irregular basis on the Sabbath. So we read in verse 32 that day, the people were astonished at his teaching for his word was with authority. He taught with authority. The word execia in Greek literally means privilege or right. So Luke writes that Jesus taught us one who had the right to speak because he was convinced. He was speaking from his heart, verse 36 and say he spoke with authority again and they'll add the word "dunamous" and with God's power. His speaking style, his words and the things that Jesus communicated, left the people dumbfounded. The word "a stone-eyed" astonished. It just left them with their minds blown. It's in the Bible. You should blow your mind. That's right there. Look at that. It's in the Bible. When Jesus' day taught like this, he spoke about eternity like he knew something about, warned about hell as if it was a place that truly existed. Reach out to the brokenhearted, put his finger on sin, spoke about the judgment of God and yet the reason he came is forgiveness, the peace that he could bring, the love that he had. By comparing the stripes and the spheresies, their teachings seemed to be very insignificant. They didn't touch the people's hearts because they weren't convinced. They had no right to speak because they didn't know it. You can read there in Luke 11 as we, well, we won't get there this week either. Jesus in speaking to the Pharisees said, "What are you Pharisees? You're all about tithing from mint and ru and herbs and you just pass by the justice and the love of God." Okay, you can teach the one, but why do you go by the other? In other words, they really didn't care for or know about the love of God. And yet Jesus came across as he should, someone who loved the people and whose love for the people was a reflection of the heart of God. Jesus spoke systematically, the scribes and Pharisees, they rambled, they were long-winded without direction, the Lord loved the people. He spoke about their welfare, warned them of what was going on. By the time you got done listening to a sermon by Jesus, you had something to run with. He pointed them to the Father. He gave them great promises. The scribes and Pharisees were just interested in loitering over the people. In Luke 20, the Lord said, "Be aware of the scribes." They run around with long robes and they love to be greeted in the marketplace. They love the best seats in the synagogue and the best place at the feast, but they will devour a widow's house and they will make for a pretense long prayers and they will receive a great condemnation. That was the comparison between Jesus' ministry of the people and the religious leaders of his day. So Jesus spoke with authority and with power, by the way, the Pharisees and the scribes never spoke of themselves. They wouldn't say to you, "This is what I say." They made their living, quoting others, vacillating between opinions, "Oh, you know, so-and-so, so-and-so, I don't know, you have to pick for yourself." And Jesus just said, "You've heard it said by then of old time, but I say unto you." He declared the word with great authority, it is just a few miles down the road, not even that far, where the Sermon on the Mount had been given. Matthew 5, 6 and 7, where Jesus, six times, said, "You've heard them say, 'But let me tell you what God's words means.'" Jesus spoke with authority. The people, I'm sure, just flock to hear him. If you can't share what is in your heart with joy and with conviction, no one's going to listen. People, palpably, could tell the difference. Later on, when some of the scribes and the chief priests had sent some soldiers to arrest Jesus there in John chapter 7, these soldiers returned without him, and the Pharisee said, "Where is he? Have you not brought him?" And they said, "Oh, no. No man has ever spoke like this man. I'm just, we couldn't arrest him. We wanted to listen to him." And the Pharisee said to him, "Are you also now being deceived?" No, I don't think we are. We were moved by his words. There's a lot of people today who will quote the Bible when it serves their interests, oftentimes out of context with little interest for the truth. And then there are those of you and I, hopefully, who believe God's word, can share it with passion, have a conviction about what we are sharing, believe what we're saying, not just quoting somebody else and lead of the Holy Spirit. Look at the religious guy with the Bible and a born-again Christian with a Bible filled with the Spirit. Jesus stood out as we would imagine that he would. Well, as he is teaching verse 31 in the end of the synagogue that morning, a man came in with a spirit of an unclean demon and he cried out with a loud voice and he said, "Leave us alone. What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You're the holy one of God." So as the sermon is being preached, the sermon is interrupted by a demon possessed man. I only remember one time I was teaching anywhere that someone screamed out. It was at a funeral and this guy didn't like the gospel and he stood up and he said, "I was full of something." Very loudly from the audience, maybe 500 people there. And I said, "Well, that may be true, but if you'll sit down, we'll try to talk about what God can do for those who are full of something." And then he was quiet. But I didn't like and you wouldn't like it. Imagine this. Jesus is sharing these powerful and authoritative and there's a guy come screaming at the top of his lungs. There's a tremendous satanic opposition that you will watch following Jesus wherever he goes in this ministry. It's like they, you know, he invaded the domain of these false demons. And with that thought, we'll stop there for today and pick up the balance of Luke chapter 4 verses 31 through 44, the next time we're together. This has been the second part of a three-part study taught by Pastor Jack Abilin. If you'd like to get the entire message, we do have that available for you. All you need to do in order, simply contact us and ask for study number 42-46. That's always helpful for us to know the radio station that you're listening to. So be sure to mention those call letters when you get a hold of us. And as we're studying through the gospel of Luke, sometimes it's good to be able to compare one gospel to another. So in the month of July, we'd like to offer to you, Pastor Jack studies through the gospel of Mark. This gospel, as many scholars believe, was dictated by the Apostle Peter, two young Mark, who then wrote a detailed experience of the life and ministry of Jesus. Pastor Jack's teachings through the gospel of Mark are available in the NP-3 format on a flash drive. So if you'd like to get this resource or today's message, just dial our toll-free phone number at 866-88-Grace, that's 866-884-7223, 866-884-7223. You can also order by mail, just to address your letter to Growing Through Grace, P.O. Box 1954, Whittier, California, 90609. And for your convenience, you can find this in all of our resources online at growingthroughgrace.com. So here's a way that you can view more of Pastor Jack's teachings at our Church's YouTube page. You can find us at Morningstar CC. Again, that's @MorningstarCC. Once you're there, be sure to hit the subscribe button and the notification bell to be informed when we go live and when we post new messages. Once again, be sure to subscribe to our Morningstar Christian Chapel YouTube page to stay up to date with all of Pastor Jack's messages. That's going to wrap it up not only for today, but for this week. We do look forward to being with you again in our next program, so until then, as you daily walk with our Lord Jesus Christ, may you continue to grow in His grace. Growing Through Grace is a listener-supported ministry brought to you by Morningstar Christian Chapel in Whittier, California. The coverage apple outreach. (gentle music)
