Jesus Comes Home
Tom Shrader walks through Luke 4:14-30, setting the scene of Jesus returning to His hometown of Nazareth amid widespread excitement and anticipation. Jesus reads from Isaiah 61 and declares that the Messianic promise — to preach to the spiritually poor, free the captives, restore sight to the blind, and liberate the oppressed — is fulfilled in Him that very day. The sermon explores how familiarity bred contempt among the townspeople, how two Old Testament illustrations of God's grace to Gentiles enraged them, and applies the passage as an invitation to those who feel spiritually bankrupt or enslaved to surrender to Christ.
“Jesus comes to those squashed by life's circumstances, who can see no way out, who find living itself an oppression, and he gives them freedom.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: A Study Of The Life Of Jesus Christ (2003/2004)
Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 40 min
Themes: rejection, grace, freedom, salvation, humility, evangelism, spiritual blindness, surrender, feeling spiritually bankrupt, struggling with unbelief, new believer, skeptic, feeling enslaved to sin, seeker, young adult, returning to faith
Scripture: Luke 4:14-30, Luke 4:18-19, Luke 4:21-24, Luke 4:28-30, John 4, John 8:36, Isaiah 61:1-2, Isaiah 58:6, Isaiah 66, Mark 6:2, Revelation 3, Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 11, Numbers 15, Psalm 145, 1 Kings 17, 2 Kings 5, James 4:6-8
Theological Themes: christology, messianic fulfillment, Isaiah 61, soteriology, salvation, gentile inclusion, biblical prophecy, prevenient grace
Full Transcript
Jesus Returns to Galilee
Open your Bibles, please, to the Gospel of Luke, chapter four. We've had a brief parenthetical insert in our study of the Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We were studying John 4, the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, which is a beautiful example of evangelism and how life can change. Over these last three weeks, that passage has stirred more discussion than almost anything else we've done, perhaps other than the doctrines of grace. Many of you have come face-to-face with the fact that God has called you to evangelize, called you to reach out to those around you, and for some it has been a wake-up call — a recognition that that outreach hasn't happened. That is a good and important thing to wrestle with.
Today we return to our story. We have titled this message "Jesus Comes Home," and we are going to look at Luke chapter 4, verses 14 through 30. To orient ourselves, let me direct your attention to the map. We left off with Jesus moving from Judea in the south up toward Galilee. When we looked at John 4, He was passing through Samaria and the city of Sychar. Now He continues north into Galilee, and the city of Nazareth becomes the focus for today.
Here is how John closes the section we studied. "After two days He went forth from there into Galilee, where Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they themselves also went to the feast." That is the backdrop, the point where we left off in John's Gospel, and Luke picks up the story right there.
The Scene in the Synagogue
Luke chapter 4, verse 14 reads: "And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district. And He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all." Jesus' reputation is preceding Him. The people have heard of the works, the miracles, the wonders — everything that has taken place — and now Jesus is coming. The word has spread through all the surrounding districts, and there is great excitement attached to His arrival.
Verse 16 tells us: "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." By this point Jesus had developed a custom — He regularly entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. So the scene is set: Jesus is coming home, anticipation is running high, the people are gathered, and there is a sense of wonderment in the air.
Let me walk you through what a typical synagogue service would have looked like. It would begin with thanksgiving and blessing, usually a reading or singing from Psalm 145 through Psalm 150. Then passages would be recited from Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 11, and Numbers 15. After that, there would be readings from the Pentateuch and from the Prophets — read first in Hebrew, then translated into Aramaic. Then would come a sermon with an exhortation, followed by a benediction. That is the framework within which Jesus arrives and participates.
Verse 17 says: "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 reading may have been one He requested, or it may have been the assigned reading for that day. It comes from Isaiah 61, verses 1 and 2, and from Isaiah 58, verse 6. This is what Jesus read: "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 downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord."
Verse 20 continues: "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." Let's take a moment to paint this scene carefully. This is the hometown boy who has made good, returning home. Word has spread to all the surrounding area that He is in the synagogue. He is the guest of the day, He has performed the reading, He has sat down, and He is about to teach. The anticipation is high. It is not an exaggeration at all to say the room is filled with electricity.
A Picture of That Electricity
I was trying to think of something in my own life that captures that feeling, and here is what I came up with. In 1969, the New York Mets won the World Series. I'm from Davenport, Iowa, and a good friend I went to school with and spent time with was a fellow named Pete McAndrews. Pete's cousin, Jim McAndrews, pitched on that 1969 New York Mets team. When the World Series was over, Jim McAndrews came back to Lost Nation, Iowa — a town of about 200 to 250 people. That day was declared Jim McAndrew Day in Lost Nation, and we went out there and found around 1,200 people. People had come from Bennett and from all the surrounding areas just for Jim McAndrew Day. We all gathered to hear Jim McAndrews give his account of the 1969 World Series, and you could have heard a pin drop. About all that has in common with Jesus is —
The Scripture Fulfilled
All is quiet — so quiet, as one author, Ken Hughes, writes, that one could hear a feather drop. Every eye is fixed on Jesus. His mouth opens, and He begins His address. Does He start by reminding the audience of the golden days now gone forever, when Jehovah stretched out His mighty arm and performed miracles on the earth? He does not. Does He begin by entertaining listeners with bright promises pertaining to the future? Not that either.
That is what they are waiting for. What is He going to say? What is He going to do? What is going to happen? How will we respond? How will the person next to me respond? This is a very important and significant moment. All eyes are fixed upon Him, and verse 21 says, "And He began to say to them" — here is the message — "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
What scripture is He talking about? He is talking about the passage He read, recorded for us in verses 18 and 19. It is a Messianic scripture. It speaks of the time when the Messiah will come, and when the Messiah comes, things are going to happen. The gospel will be preached, the blind will see, and captives will be freed. Jesus does not really expand on this other than to say: this day, this moment, this time is now fulfilled right here in this place. The Messiah is coming with a very specific purpose and a very specific mission, and today, those present are the benefactors of His missionary work.
Four Parts of the Mission
There are four parts to that mission. If you look at verses 18 and 19, Jesus says four things.
First, this Messiah, this messenger, is going to preach the gospel to the poor. The word "poor" here can cover poverty of all kinds. Obviously, when we think of poor, there is a tendency to think of not having material resources — not having a lot of money, not having a lot of stuff. But the idea here is probably not poverty in terms of material things. It is spiritual poverty. In Isaiah 66, just after the passage Jesus would have read, Isaiah writes: "But this is the man to whom I will look: he is humble, he is crushed in spirit, and he trembles at my words." Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount by saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The idea is someone who is spiritually bankrupt — a beggar.
Now, when we hear that word today, it creates a problem for us. We are walking down the street, and someone stops us — a panhandler — and says, "Hey, you got any spare change?" And we do everything we can to avoid the moment. If the man is standing over here and you are parked there, you are looking down, looking everywhere, scratching, doing anything you can to keep from making eye contact, because once you make eye contact, it feels like he has you. We almost think that in interacting with someone who is begging, he holds the upper hand — that he is in the dominant position.
That is the exact opposite of what Jesus has in mind. In that day and that culture, a beggar would be sitting on the street, not even making eye contact, looking the other way, begging for food — totally, entirely, and completely dependent on whoever walked by to meet his needs. Here is what Jesus is saying: the gospel came to be preached to those who are totally and utterly bankrupt of their own efforts to please a holy God. They are no longer operating under the facade that somehow they can please God, make God happy, or perform some work that would satisfy God's wrath.
James tells us: "God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble. So submit yourself to God. Resist the devil. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinner, and purify your heart, you double-minded." That is what Jesus is saying. You are broke spiritually. There is nothing you can do. You may think you are rich, but you are not. Is that not exactly what happened in the book of Revelation? In Revelation chapter 3, to the church at Laodicea, Jesus says: "Because you say, 'I am rich and have become wealthy and need nothing,' you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked."
Release to the Captives
The second thing Jesus says is that He will provide release to the captives — literally to the prisoners of war, to the exiles, to those who have been dragged away from their homeland. It symbolizes enslavement to sin and Satan. Scripture says to us as Christians: "You were bought at a price, so do not enslave yourself to men."
One time, after speaking on the subject of slavery, a man came up to me afterward and said, "I think there is more slavery in the United States of America now than at the time of the Civil War." It sounds like an odd statement, and I asked him what he meant. He said, "We are enslaved to Bank of America." What are you in bondage to?
Maybe you are here today and you absolutely understand that you are in bondage. You may get momentary victory — perhaps you have quit something a dozen times, and each time it proves you can quit, but each time you race back to it. Ultimately, it has a grasp and hold on you. What is it? It could be stuff. It could be money and things. The problem with new stuff is it costs money, and it puts you in bondage.
Bondage to the Things of This World
This is one of the interesting things about this church — so many of you have so much stuff, and oftentimes other people are looking at that stuff and saying, "Why don't we have that stuff?" Wives will say to husbands, "How come you don't give me that stuff?" But you need to know something about that stuff: there are a lot of people who are in bondage to having it.
I am not a car guy. I want a car that is reliable, I want it to look nice, I want it to start and run, but I am not a car guy. So I was talking to someone, and I said, "That is a great-looking car," and he said, "You know what that cost?" I said no. He said, "Seventy-five thousand dollars." For our first house and condo combined, we paid exactly $75,000.
Sometimes you just have to have the latest. That is the deal with the tech guys, the electronics guys — they have to have the latest, so the minute they are unwrapping the new thing, the other hand is going through the catalog to see what is coming out to replace it. It is expensive stuff, and we can always justify it. Maybe you are in bondage to stuff.
Spiritual Bondage and the Search for Easy Answers
Maybe you are in bondage spiritually. You hear it all the time — the buzzword is, "I am a spiritual person. I am not a religious person, I am a spiritual person." And I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what that means. As close as I can tell, it means going to a bookstore, browsing through all the books until you find one that agrees with you, does not cost you anything, and talks about God or a higher power. It certainly has nothing to do with Biblical truth or Biblical Christianity.
Maybe you are in serious spiritual bondage. Or maybe you are in bondage sexually — some sort of sexual sin where you say, "I am done with it, I quit, I have broken it," but you find yourself right back to it. It could be any other sin as well. It could be guilt. It could be anger.
I met with a man this week who said, "I am so angry. I am so mad." I asked what he was mad about, and he said, "I am mad at the culture." He said, "I see where the culture is racing, and it just makes me so angry. This is not the country I knew or the country I loved. I see same-sex marriage, I see people who do not care, I see all of these things happening, and I am so angry."
Let me stop for a moment. I see those things too, but getting angry is not going to make any difference, and it is not going to help you. Susan has been really helpful to me on this. She will just say, "Let it go. What do you care? Are you going to run for office? No? Then let it go. You do not need to fix the whole world, Tom." And that is exactly right. God did not call you and me to change the world. He called us to impact our world.
It is even easier to get angry at all that stuff out there because it does not cost you anything — maybe a new radio every time you launch it into the wall, but other than that, it costs you nothing.
The Messiah Comes to Set Captives Free
Whatever the bondage is, the Messiah comes to provide relief to the captives. As Jesus said in John 8:36, "If the Son of God shall come and make you free, you shall be free indeed." And He came to recover the sight of the blind. When Jesus gave His marching orders to the Apostle Paul, here is what He said: "I am sending you out to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sin and a place among those who were sanctified by my faith." Jesus said, "For judgment came to the world, that those who did not see may see."
All of a sudden, eyes are opened. One author draws a connection here: those captives have been in a dark dungeon, and all of a sudden they come out into the light, and their eyes open as they adjust. We talk about the light coming to them.
Here is what that makes me think of — math class. Inevitably, through the course of the year, you would hear somebody say, "The light just came on. I just got it." I took math for I do not know how many years, and I am telling you, it was stone-cold dark where I was sitting. The light never came on. I gave up even wanting the light to come on. I used to say, "God, get his light on over here and I think we will do okay together." I never got it.
But some of you know that moment. Those of you who are Christians can remember it — I can remember when all of a sudden I went, "I see it." And now you are free. Free not to go do whatever you want, but free in a way that means you no longer enslave yourself to guilt, anger, sex, money, drugs, alcohol, pride, or ego. Instead, you enslave yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Freedom That Lasts Forever
One author writes this: "This last idea — those set free — carries the sense of oppression, of being broken or shattered." And then he writes a great sentence, and this may be you here today: Jesus comes to those squashed by life's circumstances, who can see no way out, who find living itself an oppression, and He gives them freedom.
After coming to Christ, years later, one author wrote: "All other freedoms, once won, soon turn into new servitude. Christ is the only liberator whose liberation lasts forever."
So Jesus reads this passage from the Old Testament, from the book of Isaiah, which speaks of the Messiah — it describes what the Messiah will do when He comes.
Familiarity and Wonder
All were speaking well of Him, wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips, and they were saying, "Is this not Joseph's son?" I want to lay two passages of Scripture side by side, though they speak of different events. One is the passage we have here, Luke 4:22, and the other is from Mark 6, an event that takes place later in Jesus' life, but with a very similar reaction.
Luke 4:22, which we just read, says all were speaking well of Him, they are wondering at these gracious words. Mark 6:2 records them saying, "Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to him? And such miracles are performed by his hand." There is a sense of excitement. They are astounded, they are speaking well of Him, there is an implied agreement taking place, and they are marveling. But in both instances, that excitement does not last long.
In Luke's passage, they quickly say, "Is this not Joseph's son?" In Mark's passage, they say, "This is the carpenter's son, isn't it? Isn't his mom Mary, and isn't Joseph his father, and aren't these his brothers and sisters?" — and they name them.
A Word on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary
I feel compelled to address this every time, so it is repetitive for some of you, but for those for whom this is new, it is very important — especially those from a Catholic background. I come from a Catholic background myself, so I feel a real kinship there. I came through Catholic grade school, high school, and college, and there was a teaching dropped on us called the perpetual virginity of Mary. The idea was that while Jesus was obviously the product of a virgin birth, Mary and Joseph never consummated their marriage.
I went to Holy Family Grade School, and every day we would walk past a statue of Joseph and Mary, with Mary holding the baby Jesus. There was always a somewhat frustrated look on Joseph's face, and as a young man I never fully understood it. I would look at it and think, he doesn't look very happy for the father of Jesus — you would think he would be proud — but he looks a little frustrated. I understand why now, given that teaching. In a sense, that depiction would be an accurate one under that doctrine.
The accurate Scriptural picture, however, is that Mary and Joseph had relations many times — at least six, according to this passage. That is an important truth, and it takes us into other areas not to bash Mary or criticize Catholics, but simply to say: when I have Scripture on one side and tradition on the other, Scripture trumps tradition. Scripture has the final word. Most often, when someone presents false teaching, they will have a book, a tradition, or a person they place above Scripture. That must never be the case. This is the divine, infallible Word of God, and it has the last word.
The Danger of Familiarity
Back to the text. In verse 22 they are speaking well of Him, and then all of a sudden they say, "Is this not Joseph's son?" What is happening here? There is a positive reaction at first. Jesus stands and speaks about the great day that is coming — the gospel preached to the poor, the blind recovering their sight, the downtrodden freed, the captives released — and there is excitement about that. But then, when He says, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled," their thinking shifts. He has just claimed to be the Messiah. And how can that be?
Notice they do not protest anything He said on its merits. They do not find fault with His teaching or point to inconsistencies in His life. What is happening is something captured by the familiar saying: familiarity breeds contempt. There may even be a little jealousy at work. He is just a boy from Nazareth — how can He be the Messiah?
There is a great warning here for you and me. J.C. Ryle writes, "We are apt to think lightly of the privilege of an open Bible, a preached gospel, the liberty of meeting together for public worship. We grow up in the midst of these things, and are accustomed to have them without trouble, and the consequence is that we often hold them very cheap, and underrate the extent of our mercies." In other words, we are prone, just as they were, to take things for granted.
Before the service I was talking with someone about an article on the church in North Korea. It suggested that since around 1995, six and a half million people have died in North Korea from malnutrition, with many others suffering specifically for their faith. I also read a novel last year by Randy Alcorn dealing with the church in China. There have been many great changes there, but persecution for the faith continues, and in those churches they described people rarely having a full Bible. Different people hold different pages, and some congregations may have only a page or two of Scripture between them. Most of us have Bibles all over our homes.
When we start to take these things for granted, we fall into the same trap. I went to the doctor recently and he told me to go home and rest. That was not going to happen, but I have been sleeping a great deal the last couple of days, and in those quiet moments I have been drifting and thinking about all the blessings I have. At the top of that list has to be Susan — and yet, until this past hour when she was in the conference room and I was talking through this passage with her, she had not heard that from me in far too long.
God's Blessing Taken for Granted
What Jesus is saying is that this is a typical human reaction: to have God bless us and bless us and bless us, and pretty soon we just take it for granted. We think we deserve it. We even think we've earned it. When we read stories about a suffering church, that doesn't even compute for us. The closest we come to suffering is pulling into the parking lot on Sunday, finding no space near the door, and saying, "I think I'm going home. I've suffered enough for the Lord today."
"Physician, Heal Yourself"
Jesus understands exactly how they're thinking, so here's what He says in verse 23: "No doubt you will quote this proverb to me, 'Physician, heal yourself. Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do it here in your hometown as well.'" He quotes a proverb that would be familiar to them. Here is what He knows they're saying: do a trick. Do something here. You've done it in Capernaum, do it here. Let's see something fancy, something extraordinary. Show yourself. Give us a miracle, give us a sign. You've made this claim — let's back it up. Even though it has been backed up over and over again, Jesus anticipates that reaction.
Whether their attitude is driven by jealousy, pride, or something else, they can't accept it. So Jesus says in verse 24, "Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown." This seems to be a principle. He then gives them two Old Testament illustrations that prove His point — and that generate a very strong reaction from the crowd.
The Widow of Zarephath
The first illustration comes from 1 Kings 17. As I went back and read it again, it just made me smile — these stories remind us of God's provision and grace. Jesus said this: "But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, and a great famine came over the land. And yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but to Zarephath in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow."
Here is the story: there is poverty and famine in the land, and Elijah, the great prophet, is sent by God not to a member of the nation of Israel but to this woman of Sidon. When he encounters her, she is absolutely poor — she has nothing but a little bit of flour left. He comes and says, "God wants you to feed me. Give me something to drink." And she does. She gives him what little she has.
One author writes this: "Amazingly, the starving woman obeyed Elijah's strange words. And for as long as the famine endured, she had flour and oil." Why did she trust Elijah? If she had been like the people of Nazareth, she would have demanded a miracle first. But Elijah insisted otherwise. Without any evidence, this Gentile woman gave her last meal to him. The reason is very simple: she realized her absolute poverty and her fatal lack of resources. Perhaps if she had a barrel full of flour when she met Elijah, she might have put her faith in her barrel rather than in God. Her blessing was that she was desperately poor and she knew it. There are all sorts of subtle applications here to the story before us — and this illustration would have been an insult to the people listening.
Naaman the Syrian
That insult is only intensified by the second illustration, from 2 Kings 5: "And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them were cleansed — only Naaman the Syrian."
Here is what was happening. Leprosy was widespread. Naaman was a mighty warrior. The king of Aram said to him, "Go to the king of Israel. Perhaps you will be cleansed." Naaman went to the king of Israel, who was ultimately afraid, convinced that this was some kind of plot to harm him or to overtake the nation. Elisha stepped in and said, "No — you need to take care of him." So Naaman went to see Elisha. Elisha sent out a messenger and said, "Go dunk yourself seven times in the Jordan River." In 2 Kings 5, around verses 11 or 12, Naaman is furious. He tells us why: he had expected that Elisha would come out personally and there would be this great moment of celebration as God performed a mighty miracle. That is not what happened.
There is a significant sub-lesson there about expectations — about how we think God ought to work. But God does His own thing. Naaman is cleansed. And once again, God passes over the nation of Israel and ministers to someone outside of it.
The Rage of the Synagogue
So Jesus tells these two stories. There are all sorts of applications woven through them: these were people who were genuinely desperate; they were people who did not demand a sign first; and they point to the reality that God's purposes extend beyond the nation of Israel.
Look at the response in verse 28: "All in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things." They are that angry? Why? Several reasons. First, they had expectations that were not being recognized in this moment. Second, they understood that Jesus was drawing on the Old Testament to show that God was moving beyond Israel — and they refused to see, as the widow of Sidon and Naaman had seen, that they themselves were broken, desperate, and bankrupt. So they grew furious.
The Offense of God's Sovereignty
This also speaks to the doctrine of God's sovereignty, which J.C. Ryle addresses directly. Something about God's sovereignty rubs us the wrong way. Ryle writes this: "Of all the doctrines of the Bible, none is so offensive to human nature as the doctrine of God's sovereignty. To be told God is great and just and holy and pure — man can bear that. But to be told that He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, that He has given no account of any of His matters, that it is not of him who willeth or him who runneth, but of God who shows mercy — these are truths that natural man cannot stand."
That is exactly what Jesus is saying.
God's Sovereignty and Our Response
God is God, and God works His way, in His timing. We don't like it, and people still get angry about it. Where was God on September 11th? Why would God allow such a thing? The answer, as hard as it is to accept, is simply that He is God.
I was lying in bed awake the other night, and Jim Bohannon was interviewing the host of Inside the Actors Studio. It is a fascinating show, and he always closes with a set of questions. One of them was this: if there is a God, and you could ask Him something, what would it be? Robert De Niro had a very succinct answer — he said he would ask God, "What are you thinking? What are you doing?"
I see that response all the time. When we talk about the God of the Bible, it is amazing how many unbelievers, and even many Christians, do not want to deal with that God. They want a God that fits into their mindset. They want a God who would respond the way they would.
When you sit down and talk about salvation, you have to reckon with the fact that salvation is of God, not of man. If you are a Christian today, it is not based on anything you did, could do, or would do — it is based on God's mercy. God's sovereignty is really the only explanation for how God works in one life and not another. How do you see two people — brother and sister, husband and wife, family members — and God saves one and not the other? Who are you, God? What are you thinking, God? I don't know, but He is God.
Have you ever been angry at God? Oftentimes, God's sovereignty produces exactly that in our lives — anger, frustration. And look at verse 30: "And He was passing through their midst and He went away." Something extraordinary takes place here. He simply leaves.
The Fulfilled Scripture and the Call to Come to Jesus
Let me take you back to verse 21. Jesus declared, "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" — right here, right now. You may be here right now and desperate. You may be poor. It may be that you are just starting to see and understand this for the first time.
These are the very things Jesus spoke of in that passage from Luke — that He came to preach the gospel to the poor and provide release to the captives, to recover the sight of the blind and set free those who were downtrodden. Is that you? Are you here today and not a Christian? That description is a perfect portrait of someone who is not yet a Christian. You are a captive.
Consider Bill Clinton's own explanation for the Monica Lewinsky affair: "I did it because I could." That is what a captive does. You talk about being enslaved to your passions — he was a Rhodes Scholar, and yet he could not resist, because he had been taken captive by his own lust and his own sin. Are you enslaved like that? Are you sitting there today, and we cannot tell by looking at you, but you are tormented, frustrated, and you want to be free? Here is the answer: come to Jesus.
Maybe you really are downtrodden, broken, and shattered. Let me read it again — Jesus comes to those squashed by life's circumstances who can see no way out, who find living itself an oppression. Is that you? Give up. Sometimes that is the very thing to do. Maybe you have been slugging it out on your own for too long. Give up. Run up the sweet flag of surrender and say, "I have tried it my way. God, I have given it everything I can. I cannot do it. I need Jesus, and He is all I need."
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for Jesus Christ, for His life, for the gift that we find in Him and Him alone, for eternal life. Father, You are the great one, the famous one. We thank You and we love You for what You have done in our lives. For those of us who are Christians and have been set free — we were spiritually bankrupt, but now we are filled with righteousness and holiness, imputed to us through the work of Your Son, Jesus.
God, when we hear that You are sovereign, that You rule, we do not run from that. Those are great words to us. They remind us that You had mercy on us, that while we were yet sinners, You died for us. And to those who may be here today for whom that is a new message — will You give them the courage to talk to somebody at the front of the worship center or the conference center after the service? God, let our lives bring honor and glory to You. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.