My Second Sermon

We have attended Cornerstone Church for several years now and I have recently been asked for the second time to preach on Sunday morning. The first time was several months ago while our pastor was out of town and I preached on the book of Jude. This time our pastor would like a week break before launching a new series on the Decalogue. I have decided to teach from Luke 4:16-30, where Jesus returns to Nazareth and teaches in the synagogue. I'll put some thoughts on this passage together here as a preparatory exercise.

In Luke 4:16 we find Jesus coming back to Nazareth after his temptation in the wilderness, where He successfully passed through the trial that Israel had failed in their 40 years of the wilderness in the Old Testament. He had already made a name for himself as a great teacher and worker of signs in Galilee. His reputation had undoubtedly made it back to His little hometown before Him. There was certainly a combination of doubt over whether this simple carpenter could be a great prophet and expectation that He would do many signs for them to prove it.

Jesus goes into the synagogue on the Sabbath as His custom was, and we find that he is asked to read from the Scripture. Being recognized already as a rabbi, he was asked to read as visiting rabbis often were. He stood in front of the entire crowd in the synagogue and read. The Scripture passage was already determined for that week, as was the custom, and He found it in the book of Isaiah that was handed to Him. This passage happens to be a passage that speaks of the coming Messiah. After reading the passage he sits down in front of the crowd, which was the customary position for teaching. This was the time when the rabbi would give his commentary upon the passage for the people. Jesus said to them that today that prophecy from Isaiah was fulfilled. The meaning of this statement was not lost on the crowd. Immediately they were impressed by His teaching and marvelled out loud asking how this could come from the son of Joseph.

Jesus then proceeds to tell them that they will demand signs from Him like the ones He did in other places and that a prophet is not accepted in his own country. He then recounts two details from the Old Testament where all of Israel was in desperate need and God chose to help none of them, but rather to help a Gentile. This is where the Messiah reveals for the first time to the Jews what the Old Testament and John the Baptist had foreshadowed many times. The New Covenant will include the Gentiles together with the Jews. Christ and His church are the true Israel of God. They have a new and better Covenant. They are the substance rather than the types and shadows. Under the New Covenant it is not enough to be called a child of Abraham in the flesh. Jews and Gentiles alike must come into the New Covenant by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone unto good works. There is no other way to become part of the true Israel of God, which will inherit eternal life.

The people became furious and attempted to murder Him by throwing Him off of a cliff. We are told that He passed through the midst of them, and I take this to mean that the people were restrained somehow naturally by a distraction or supernaturally by force or blindness. The exact method is not recorded because it isn't important. We see elsewhere in Scripture many times where people are blinded or put into confusion, so this is what comes to mind.

Are the Jews today still waiting for their Messiah? They think they are, but only because they missed Him. I believe that they must repent and come to Him by faith, for there will be no future fulfillment of their mistaken Messianic expectations except by a deceiver. When Christ returns it will be to immediately seperate the sheep from the goats. The sheep will join Him in heaven and the goats will be judged in hell. I reject the view that He will come again in the form the Jews expected. I do, however, believe that the book of Romans teaches us that many who are Jews will repent and join the true Israel near the time of the Second Coming.

Many times in the New Testament the Jews were told that without Christ they would be judged. Christ Himself prophesied that the temple would be destroyed and that they would not worship in Jerusalem any longer. In A.D. 70 this destruction occurred. The practice of Old Testament Judaism in the New Covenant is a rejection of Christ and an abomination that God judges. "The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief Cornerstone."