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Luke 4 "What Jesus Came to Do"

Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He 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 heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. and He began to say to them, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, Is this not Joseph's son?"(Luke 4:14-22)

Our goal in reading the gospel of Luke is to find out how Jesus loves. We have seen already through the Christmas story that Jesus is not just a man, not even a special man, but He is Himself a message of love to us from God. Here in chapter 4, Jesus reveals what His mission is. Jesus tells us Himself what He has come to do, quoting from the 61st chapter of Isaiah. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has annointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. This is the heart of the love of Christ. In this verse we can see the object of Jesus' love, the source of Jesus love and the method of Jesus love, all three of which we can imitate and strive towards.
First the object of Jesus' love. John 3:16 tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. God loves the world but we also know that the world does not love Him. Jesus focused His ministry on those who would receive Him. But this does not mean that He spent all of His time in the Bible schools and synagogues preaching to those who were interested in God. Actually Jesus started by teaching in the synagogues but was soon rejected by those who were already full of knowledge about religious things. This is the last time in Luke that we see Jesus preaching in the synagogue, but it is not the last time we see Jesus preaching. Who does He preach to? Who does He spend His time with? Jesus preached to those who knew only one thing, how much they needed God in their lives. How utterly empty they were in their souls. Those who knew that they were poor without God.
Do you remember the little man, Zacchaeus, who climbed up into a sycamore tree so that he could see Jesus? Zacchaeus was sharp, always trying to get ahead. He figured out that if he worked for the Romans he could get rich and so he became a tax collector. But despite his wealth, Zacchaeus was empty inside. Despite having everything he needed, Zacchaeus knew that he needed to see this Jesus. Zacchaeus climbed into the tree so that he could see over the heads of the others, but Jesus stopped right under his tree, and called up to him, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house." And some people complained that Jesus would go to be a guest of this sinner. But Jesus said, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
The object of Jesus' love are those that nobody else loves. The ones that are dearest to His heart are those that are farest away from Him. Jesus is the message of the Father's love, He is the Word, communicating the love of God to the world. Once we receive that message we are accepted into the family of God, we are embraced by the love of the Father. But Jesus then steps out once more into the cold to seek and save yet another who is lost. For us loving as Jesus loves does not just mean that we love each other as Christ does. It goes beyond that, we also need to reach out beyond the church to seek and to save the lost. We also become the message of God's love to the poor. We too need to look up into the trees to find the hurting Zaccheus of this world and call them down to receive salvation from Jesus Christ.

What is the source of this love of Christ? To be honest with you, it is easy to get frustrated when I look at the poor, the empty, the lonely. I get discouraged when I see their pain, when I see their pressing need. I know that whatever I do I cannot solve all of their problems and cannot lead them all to Christ. And besides that I know that I am busy enough just trying to take care of my own life. Within myself I do not have enough love to reach out to these people. The source of outreaching love is the anointing of the Holy Spirit. At His baptism the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Jesus. The Spirit guided Jesus in the wilderness. The Spirit provided Jesus with the power to heal and do miracles. Jesus did not heal everybody. He did not preach to everybody. He only did what the Father told Him through the Holy Spirit. We also must have the Holy Spirit as our source. Many Japanese are starting to discover Volunteering. It has become trendy to go to a foreign country and help out. But most volunteers do not stay for a long time. They cannot because they soon burn out. Loving the unlovable is hard work. Helping the helpless is much more difficult than teaching the teachable. Zechariah 4:6, It is not by might and not by power but by My Spirit says the Lord. You cannot love as Jesus loves without the Spirit. You cannot just follow His example, you also need the source. You need the Spirit, the love of God living in your heart. You also need to walk in the Spirit, listen to the Spirit and as you follow the leading of the Holy Spirit you will find the strength to love as He leads.
So now we know who Jesus loves, those who need Him most, and the source of His love, the Holy Spirit. Now we need to know how Jesus loves. What is the method of His love. How can we imitate this method in our own lives. The method of Jesus' love is to preach the gospel. Remember that He is the message of God. His method is to proclaim that message, communicate the love of God to the world. But you might say, "Jonathan, that's ok for you, you are a preacher, but I am not gifted to speak in front of people. Jesus did speak in front of crowds, but He also spoke one on one with people. And more than words, Jesus also proclaimed the love of God with deeds. Jesus describes His proclamation of the gospel in the next lines, "He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;"
Jesus preaches with words, but with deeds as well. He makes the love of God real to people in need. This is how we are to love too. We need to communicate to people that God loves them and can change their lives. Jesus did this by looking first at people's hearts, rather than at their sin. We need to realize that we are surrounded by brokenhearted people chained to their sin, blinded by the world to the love of God, oppressed by the enemy into being miserable when they could live lives filled with hope and joy. Our task is to reach into these people's lives one by one and do exactly what Jesus did. We listen to people's pain, apply the first aid of compassion, and then point them to Jesus who can heal their heartache forever. We visit the captives first in their prison, tell them the good news that they really can be free, and then point them to Jesus who can break their bonds. We come to those who are in darkness, and patiently lead them into the light of Jesus Christ. We become a refuge for those who are oppressed, sheltering them temporarily but ultimately teaching them to depend on Jesus who is our strong defender.
There is one more aspect of Jesus' love that He teaches us here. Jesus read, "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 heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." This is the time of acceptance that we are in now. This is the time that we can run to God and He will receive us. You see Jesus did not read all of that verse of Isaiah. He left something out. You see in Isaiah there is another line added to the end of this verse, "And the day of vengeance of our God". Father God has a better plan for this world. It is like my plan for my son's room. I would rather that his room did not have toys on the floor from one end to the other. I would rather that the bed was properly made. I would rather that the clothes were placed in the hamper instead of wadded up in a ball on the floor. I would rather that there were not crayon marks on the wallpaper and stickers on the furniture. And I have warned him, that if the room is not cleaned up, someday I will come in anger and throw all of his toys away. But before I do that, instead I come in as a friend and help him clean up the room. I get down on my hands and knees and pick up lego blocks and scrub crayon marks off the wall. This is what Jesus is doing. He has every right to come and judge the world for its sin, but instead He comes to us sinners and gets down on His hands and knees and helps us out of the mess that we have made for ourselves.
Today is the acceptable time for you as well. Let me invite you to open up your heart to Jesus Christ and receive the message of love that He is bringing. The Bible says in Romans chapter 10, "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Ask yourself, do you believe these two things about Jesus, that He is Lord, the Son of God, and that He is alive today so that when you pray to Him, He is there to help you? If so, do one more thing, tell another Christian here today,
Jesus is my Lord. I am not trying to embarrass you or make you look foolish. If you would like to receive salvation, eternal life, freedom from sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and you believe these two things, then before you leave today, tell another person here this simple confession, Jesus is my Lord.