LUKE 4:14-21 WHAT JESUS CAME TO DO2011 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Luke 4:14-21 What Jesus Came To Do

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You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2011.

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Well, this morning as we look at this portion of Scripture, we're moving on. We spent three weeks looking at verses 1 through 13 and talking about the temptation of Jesus that He experienced. And you probably remember the context since we went over it three times. But Jesus was there. He was baptized as He is really beginning now His earthly ministry. And then immediately after that, He's led by the Spirit into a season, a time of trial and temptation there in the wilderness.

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And now as we move forward in verses 14 and on, we're heading into really the public ministry of Jesus and beginning to see the things that he did. And it's awesome because as we begin this first portion this morning in verse 14 through 21, we see Jesus here proclaiming and declaring, this is what I came to do. And so what we're looking at this morning is what Jesus came to do, the things that he came to accomplish.

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Look with me again in verse 14. It says, 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.

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Here as we see in verse 14 and 15, after this time of temptation in the wilderness, Jesus now begins to minister. He begins to go to the different synagogues all throughout the region of Galilee, also in Judea we know from the other Gospels. And so northern and southern Israel, he's going throughout all of Israel and he is sharing at the synagogues. He's beginning this ministry that God had called him to.

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And verse 14 and 15 really seem that we're looking at a larger span of time. Probably about a year takes place in verses 14 and 15 as we compare it to the other Gospels and the things that happen there. And so there's about a year going on where Jesus is ministering. He's going to different parts of Israel on Saturdays.

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The Sabbath day, he's at the synagogue, he's ministering there, and news is spreading about him. The word is beginning to build, and they're recognizing that something is happening as Jesus now is going to these different places. He's working miracles, he's teaching miracles,

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It was during that first year of his ministry, you remember that he turned the water to wine at the wedding? That's recorded there in the Gospel of John. It's also during that first year that he was at the Passover at the temple and he overturned the tables and he drove out the money changers and cleansed the temple. And so there's a lot that's been happening over this past year as he's begun this ministry.

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And specifically it says here that he's going throughout their synagogues and every major city of the nation of Israel at that time had synagogues that if there were ten men or more, there would be a gathering together of the believers and they would be studying the word and spending time together and they would have these synagogues that they would meet at. And so he's

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he would be going to these different locations and doing the work that God had called him to. Verse 16, 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. And we'll go on to say and record the passage there that he read. Verse

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But as we see Jesus, he's going out to these different places in this ministry. He's going from city to city, from place to place, synagogue to synagogue. Now he comes to Nazareth. And Nazareth is his hometown. You remember that's where Joseph and Mary were both from.

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And they returned there after they had fled to Egypt for a time when Jesus was born. A couple of years later, then they come back to Israel and they go back to Nazareth. And so Jesus has been raised in Nazareth. He's spent most of his life in Nazareth. And so he's been brought up there, but now he's back there. And it was his custom, it was his habit, his pattern that on the Sabbath he would go to synagogue.

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Every time the service was there, he was participating in the synagogue service and the worship of God and the things that were going on there. And so it's Sabbath day. Where do you find Jesus? Right according to his custom, according to his habit, he's in church. He's at the synagogue. He's participating in the worship service.

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Now the synagogues were something you might recognize that it's not something we find in the Old Testament. It's not something that God commanded them to have synagogues. But synagogues really came about during the time that Israel was captive in Babylon. When Jerusalem had been conquered and they were taken captive to Babylon, they didn't have the temple. That was sin.

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Well, it was destroyed, but it would have been back in Jerusalem. And so what they did in Babylon was they would just gather together where they were and they would spend some time together worshipping God. When they were later allowed to come back to the land of Israel...

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They continued that practice and so those who weren't immediately near the temple, they would just gather together with the others who were there in the region where they were and they would meet together and continue to worship. We see some historical evidence that Ezra was involved with this as well. And what they would do is they had a specific order of service.

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They would begin the synagogue service with prayer as well as the reciting of the Psalms. So we might think of it as prayer and worship, right? They're praying, they're worshiping through the Psalms. And then they would go through a time of reading

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of the law that is the first five books of the Old Testament they would read through the Torah the first five books and they would follow a three-year plan and so they'd spend some time reading whatever portion was assigned to get them through the law in a three-year time span

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And then after the reading of the law, then someone would read an excerpt from or a passage from one of the writings of the prophets. So maybe Jeremiah or Ezekiel or in this case Isaiah. They would read through and then they would begin to expound and share a little bit of a teaching upon that passage.

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And so that's what's happening here. When Jesus stands up, he's probably called upon by the synagogue leader and he says, would you read, you know, from Isaiah? And then, you know, as he reads from Isaiah, then he's asked to share a little bit about that passage and, you know, what God was speaking through that. And so Jesus stands up to read. He's given the scroll of Isaiah the prophet and he opens it to a specific place to share knowledge

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From Isaiah, the fact that, the reality that, he is the Messiah. And we'll see that as we go on this morning. But I want to jump over the next two verses and we'll come back to those. That quotation from Isaiah that Jesus reads, we'll spend the remainder of our time there. But let's jump to verse 20 and 21 real briefly. In verse 20 it says,

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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 the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

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And so what we have here is Jesus reads from Isaiah and then he sits down. In those days when you were teaching, you would be in a seated position. And so he sits down now to exhort and to share with the people what God is saying through that passage.

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Now as he does so, it says that their eyes are fixed on Jesus. That he's really got their attention. They're gazing intently at Jesus and looking expectantly at him and wondering what is he going to say? What is he going to share about this portion? And I'm sure they were all surprised with what Jesus did share. He says, today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

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Now, it wouldn't have been a surprise for them that, you know, Scripture is being fulfilled because they believed that, just like you and I believe that. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 verse 18 that heaven and earth will pass away, but every detail of the Word of God will be fulfilled. They believed that as well. And so that wouldn't have been a surprise for them.

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But the surprise was that Jesus quotes this particular portion of scripture and says, today this is fulfilled.

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Because that portion of scripture is talking about the Messiah, the Savior that God had promised. And really what Jesus is saying here is that he says, look, I am the person that this passage is talking about. He's announcing to the people, I am the Messiah. I am the one that fulfills this passage. And right before your eyes, this passage that he read from in Isaiah chapter 61 is being fulfilled.

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Now something important to consider, and I would encourage you to look at Isaiah chapter 61 later on and spend some time considering it.

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Because it's interesting that as you look at verses 18 and 19, you'll see as you compare it to Isaiah chapter 61, that Jesus did not read the whole chapter. He didn't read the whole passage. In fact, he didn't even finish the sentence that he was reading from there in Isaiah chapter 61. He stopped kind of right in the middle.

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And why was that? Well, Isaiah chapter 61 talks about the first coming of Jesus as He came as a Savior to die on the cross for our sins. But it also talks about the second coming of Jesus, the day of vengeance of the Lord, the day when He comes to establish His kingdom here upon the earth to rule and to reign for 1,000 years. And so it talks about His first coming as well as His second coming.

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And Jesus, when he reads this portion, he stops right as it ends talking about

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the first coming, and he stops right before Isaiah chapter 61 describes his return and the things that will take place when Jesus comes again. So there's some interesting things you can learn about the first coming of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus as you compare these two passages. Well, let's look at the verses Jesus quoted from. Here in verse 18 and 19, we have this quotation from Isaiah chapter 61. It says in verse 18, the spirit of the Lord is upon me.

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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. Jesus reads this and he says, this is being fulfilled right now in front of your eyes. I am

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And this one that's being referred to. Jesus says, the Holy Spirit is upon me because he's anointed me to do these things, to accomplish these things. And so we see here at the beginning of Jesus' ministry is declaration of what he came to do.

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Not only is it the things that Jesus came to do while he walked on this earth, but these are the things that Jesus is still doing today. And he's still doing them today through his followers, through his disciples, through those that have committed their lives to him. As we look at these different aspects or these different people that Jesus came to minister to,

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I think it's important for us to consider and understand that you and I are these people, that Jesus came to do these works in our lives, in our hearts, and he calls us to do these same things in the lives of people around us because not only are we these kind of people that's being talked about here, but we know, and there's people around us that are in the same types of conditions that Jesus is talking about here.

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He's talking about those who are in poverty, specifically spiritual poverty. He's talking about the broken hearted, those who are in bondage to sin, those who are spiritually blind, those who are oppressed. And as he's talking about all these different types of people, he's saying, I'm here to help them. I'm here to minister to them.

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And you and I are in that condition where we need that Savior. We need Jesus to minister to us. And there's many around us who need Jesus to minister to them. Whatever the situation is in a person's heart, in a person's life,

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Jesus is the answer and that's what we'll see today. You know, as we look at the world around us, it's easy to wonder how can we address all of these hurts and heartaches and fears and problems and injustices of the world. Many people have a hard time. They say, you know, I don't like to watch the news. It's just too depressing. There's just too much terrible things going on around the world. And it can bring us to the point where we say, what can we do? How can we

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Help, what is it that we can do to bring change in this world? Well as we see today the answer really is Jesus He is the only one who can do the work that's necessary in a person's life in their heart in their soul and in their spirit And so as we look at these six things that Jesus came to do there's two aspects I would like you to consider the first thing is are you in one of these conditions and

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Are you one of these types of people that is being described here? Because if you are, Jesus is your answer. He's the one that you need. He's the one that can help. He's the one that can heal. So the first thing to consider is, are you in one of these conditions? The second thing is, do you know someone who's in one of these conditions? Because if you know someone who's in one of these conditions, then you have the opportunity to share with them that Jesus is the answer.

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He is the one who can help them. He is the one who can minister to them and really meet their needs. You and I as believers in Jesus, as the church, are carrying on this work that Jesus came to do. And you and I are empowered by the Holy Spirit in the same way that Jesus was to accomplish the work that He came to do.

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Not that we do the work instead of him, but that we are participating in bringing people to Jesus so that he can heal them and work in their lives. And so let's take a look at these six things that Jesus came to do as he declares here in verse 18 and 19. The first thing we see is that he came to preach the gospel to the poor. Jesus came to preach the gospel.

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To preach the gospel simply means to announce good news. Jesus says, look, I've come. My job here is to announce, to declare, hey, everybody, I've got good news. Well, not specifically to everybody, he says, but to the poor. Now, who are the poor?

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Of course, we know that, you know, there are those who are poor financially. They have, you know, very little. You probably have seen, you know, the famine going on in Africa right now and the things that are happening there. I mean, there's great poverty around the corner and then in every corner of the globe as well. But as Jesus is talking about preaching the gospel to the poor...

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It's not just the financially or physically poor that he's referring to, but he's talking about those who are spiritually poor as well. This word that he uses for poor is an interesting word because there's another word for poor, which is the idea of a type of poverty where you have to work hard

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every day in order to eat food for that day, right? It's kind of like a day laborer, that you're just living off of whatever you can make that day or whatever you can work hard to get that day. But this word for poor that Jesus uses is not that kind of word. It's the idea that you're so poor and you're in such a condition, your only option is to beg in order to survive. That's it. You can only beg. That's your only option in order to survive.

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Now when you look at the spiritual condition of humanity, this word is a perfect description of our condition. The idea of being in a position of the only option is to beg is where we are without Jesus Christ. That you and I are absolutely poor spiritually.

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We cannot work hard in order to be spiritual. We cannot be righteous. We cannot do enough good works to earn God's favor. Spiritually speaking, you and I are poor. We're bankrupt completely. So much so that all we can do is beg. All we can do is beg for God to have mercy upon us.

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I like the way that Isaiah puts it in Isaiah chapter 64. In chapter 64 verse 5 he says, We have sinned. In these ways we continue. He says, And we need to be saved. We can't help ourselves. He says, We need a Savior. We need someone to rescue us. He goes on in verse 6 to explain. He says, We are like an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. He says, Your righteousness...

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My righteousness, that is the best that we can do. The best good deeds, the best religious acts, the best rituals, you know, the best that we can do. He says it's like filthy rags. It's a pretty graphic term that he's using when he says that our righteousness is like filthy rags. In order for us to understand, let me put it this way.

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You're trying to survive, you're poor, and so you go to the grocery store, you get your groceries, you get to the register, and now you need to pay for your groceries. The idea of offering our righteousness to God would be the same as taking out used toilet paper to give to the cashier to pay for the groceries that you want to buy. Can you imagine that? If you try it, just tell them Pastor George sent you, okay?

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That wouldn't work. Not only that, but it would be disgusting. It would be offensive. It would be terrible. Horrendous. To try to use used toilet paper to buy your groceries. It's unthinkable. Well, in the same way, the best that we can do, our righteousness is like that. It's like filthy rags. It's like used toilet paper. It's terrible. We are totally and completely bankrupt. The best that we can do is

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is disgusting and terrible and dirt. Now that's our condition. That sounds like bad news, but Jesus came to announce good news. He says, listen, you who are poor, you who are in a place where all you can do is beg God for mercy, I've come to announce to you, God has mercy on you. I've come to announce to you a way of salvation, a way of forgiveness, a way of life through those who believe in me.

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And so Jesus came to announce good news to those who were spiritually bankrupt, to those who were completely poor. Jesus gives a good example of this in a parable that he tells in Luke chapter 18.

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There in Luke 18, he tells about two different guys who go to pray. One is a Pharisee. He's a religious leader. He's, as far as our righteousness is concerned, he's way up there. I mean, he's very religious. He does lots of good deeds. He does his best to keep the law. This guy, from the outside, maybe from a human's perspective, he's got it all going on. He's got it all together.

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But the Pharisee goes and he prays, and he prays thanking God for how wonderful he is. Not how wonderful God is, but he thanks God for how wonderful the Pharisee is. He says, God, I'm so wonderful. Thank you. I do this and I do that and I do this and I do that and I have all this righteousness and I do all these works. God, I'm wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, God. He goes on to say that I'm not like this guy next to me. Now, the guy next to him was a tax collector.

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And tax collectors were notorious sinners. I mean, they were known to be wicked and corrupt and rob and cheat, you know, anybody. And so the tax collector goes to pray as well. And the tax collector, Jesus describes him in Luke 18, 13, it says that he won't even look up to heaven. He's just, he's there, his head is bowed and he beats his breast and he says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

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And Jesus said, that tax collector went home right with God, not the Pharisee. The Pharisee offered to God his own good works and said, God, I'm wonderful. Look at all my good works. God said, no way. I won't have none of that. That's like filthy rags. Why would you give me? Use toilet paper. But the tax collector, he recognized his need. He realized his poverty. And he said, God, be merciful to me. All he could do, his only option was to beg God for mercy.

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That's your condition, that's my condition, without salvation by Jesus Christ. All we can do is beg God for mercy. For someone who is poor, for someone who recognizes that they need Jesus' salvation, that they need God's mercy, Jesus is the answer. He's the one who can provide salvation. And so the first thing we see here is that Jesus came to bring good news to the person who needs God's mercy. Do you need God's mercy today?

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Or do you know someone that needs God's mercy today? Jesus is the answer. He's the solution. Well, the second thing we find here in Luke chapter 4 is that Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted. He came to heal the brokenhearted. The idea of being brokenhearted is the idea of being not just, you know, a little bit, you see the picture of the heart, you know, with the one crack down the middle. Not like that. That's not broken enough.

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compared to the word that Jesus is using here. The word brokenhearted here, it means to be crushed completely or to be shattered into a million pieces. And so this word brokenhearted, although yeah, God can heal, you know, if it's just broken a little bit, God can heal that. Sure, Jesus is the answer for that. But even in the cases where the heart is just completely decimated, that there's just, it's just obliterated, that the heart is shattered wholly and completely.

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Jesus said, I came to heal those in that condition. To heal them or to make them whole. Have you ever had a shattered heart? Have you ever been broken hearted? Or do you know people with shattered hearts?

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As we look around us, I mean, there's many today who are broken hearted, who have been shattered through circumstances, through relationships, through the things that have gone on around us. I mean, you could think about and you've probably seen many images from the whole thing that happened in Norway, right? With the bombing and the shooting and people just devastated, broken hearted.

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They're not understanding what happened, losing loved ones. I mean, just terrible, the things that have gone on. Or you could look, you know, go back a little bit further to the earthquake and the tsunami that took place in Japan. And then we've seen many images of the brokenhearted there.

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They've lost everything. They've lost husbands and wives and children and parents and family and friends, neighborhoods, communities. They lost all their buildings, you know, they lost their home, their work, I mean, everything. And they're just living in a pile of rubbish. They're just broken hearted. What's the answer? How can we help these people?

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Or you can look around us in our own community, our own society, and there's people who are just brokenhearted. Their hearts have been shattered by divorce, by betrayal, by abandonment, by the loss of loved ones, by having their hopes crushed, or by the economy. I mean, their hearts have just been shattered through all these various things. What's the answer? How can we help those who are brokenhearted? Or if you're brokenhearted today, where can you find relief?

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Healing. In the process of preparing for this morning, I was looking at some different sites and different searches and stuff and seeing what the Lord would have me to share. And I came across this particular dating website which had a section on how to heal a broken heart.

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And so the idea is, you know, you've had your heart broken in some relationship and so they've got the answer. In fact, they have a series of different things that you can do. And so the first thing that they suggest and they have, you know, an outline for and hints and tips on how to do is a dress for success page. So if you want to heal your broken heart, the best thing you can do, they suggest, is to dress well. Put on some nice clothes.

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It's just on the surface. I mean, you already know. Any rational person thinking about that realizes, "If my heart's broken, putting on new clothes doesn't heal my heart. It may cover it, it may disguise it. I'm trying now to just trick people that my heart's not actually broken instead of dealing with the real issue." Then they had another section on fitness advice. So your heart's broken, your heart's been shattered by this relationship, here's what you need to do. Go run a few miles.

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Get on the treadmill. Start working out. And your heart will be all better. Again, we know, obviously, that doesn't cure the heart. That doesn't heal the heart. Another section that they have on this how to deal with a broken heart is, okay, the dress, that didn't really do much for you. Working out, that didn't really help you that much. Here's what you need. How about a makeover? Then you'll be better. Then you'll feel better. Then your heart will be whole.

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Get a facelift or whatever. I don't know what else there is. But get some type of makeover. Or then another section. How about some dieting and nutrition? Yeah. As soon as you start eating right, start eating better, more healthy, then your heart will be healed. Again, we know these things aren't going to help. But this is the best the world can offer. They went on to say that you could also try cosmetic surgery.

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So, you know, maybe augment something or take away something, feel better about yourself and then your heart will be healed. And then the final thing that they offered was you could, you know, take their course on flirting 101. And so, you know, hey, you know, flirt around, you know, maybe get in another relationship and now your heart will be healed. Now, all of these things, obviously, we know these do not really solve the broken heart.

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They're not really an answer. Again, it may camouflage so that other people don't know that your heart is broken, but you still know. The hurt's still there. The pain's still there. The agony, the weakness, the brokenness is still there. Jesus doesn't answer brokenheartedness like that. He heals from the inside out. He makes the brokenhearted whole, complete, restored, healed. I could think of examples in the scripture like the woman at the well.

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You remember her in John chapter 4? Where there she's with Jesus and he's ministering to her and we learn, we find out she's had five husbands and the guy she's living with right now isn't her husband. I mean, her heart's been broken. It's been shattered. It's been in pieces and all these different guys that she's been with. And yet as Jesus ministers to her,

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She's transformed. She goes to the town and says, hey, come check out the guy that told me everything I ever did. She was healed from the inside out. Jesus was able to make her heart whole as she believed in him, as she turned to him.

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Or I think of the other example of a woman who was broken hearted and you see her there in Luke chapter 7 as she's breaking open a bottle of perfume and she's anointing Jesus' feet and wiping his feet with her tears and her hair and everybody else is like, hey, don't you know what's happening here? The Pharisee where he was at a Pharisee's house at that time and the Pharisee says, this woman's a sinner. She's an adulteress. What's going on here?

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Jesus says she's been forgiven much. Her heart's been healed. She's responding in worship. And so Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted, not to mask over it or disguise it or pretend that it's not there, but to make the heart whole once again.

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That's what Jesus is good at. That's what he came to do. He's anointed by the Spirit to do that. Do you know someone who's broken hearted? Or maybe are you broken hearted? Listen, Jesus is the answer. He's the solution. He's the one who can help. He's the one who can make a person whole again. Well, the third thing we see that Jesus came to do was he came to proclaim liberty to the captives. The idea here is being set free from

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From captivity or bondage. This word captive is the idea of a prisoner of war. All of humanity has been caught up as a prisoner of war. As Satan is battling against God in his attempt to rebel against God and thwart the plan of God. All of humanity in a sense has become prisoners of war.

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From the very beginning, there in the garden, when Adam fell and all of us have a sinful nature as a result, we're bound to it. We're caught up. We're kept in this condition of sin. We're captives. We cannot escape except if there is a Savior.

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Again, we're poverty stricken. We can't help ourselves, so we need someone to save us. And that's of course what Jesus came to do. By dying on the cross for our sins, by making salvation about faith and not about works, we have the opportunity to be saved and to be forgiven, to be removed from that captivity, to be set free. And so Jesus came to set the captives free.

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to deliver us from the bondage to sin that we were in. But you know, it's not just that that Jesus came to accomplish. It's not just that kind of sin that He delivers from. He even delivers from those who have been caught up and trapped by sin so much so that it's not a matter of choice or discipline any longer, but their life is dominated by and controlled by the results, the consequences, and the effects of their sin.

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I'm thinking specifically of the example of the demoniac that we'll get to in Luke chapter 8.

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You remember the demoniac, he was a guy who is demon possessed. Not just was he demon possessed, but he had a legion of demons possessing him. I mean, this guy was in serious trouble. And society did their best to try to help this guy. They couldn't help him. So they did their best to try to get him away and to get him out of, you know, so that he wouldn't harm anybody. They would try to chain him up, but he would break the chains.

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And Jesus comes in contact with this demoniac in Luke chapter 8. Society had given it their best shot. Even chains couldn't hold him. They couldn't rehabilitate him. They couldn't fix it. But five minutes with Jesus and the town comes out to find the guy made whole in his right mind. The demons had been cast out. Now demon possession does not happen, you know, just because you kind of stumbled around the corner at the wrong time. You're in the wrong place, wrong time. And oops, sorry, you got demon possessed. That's not how demon possession works.

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Demon possession works by us opening doors, by us giving opportunity, by us dabbling in sin and things that are not of God. And in doing so, this guy brought himself and brought his life to a condition where now he's completely controlled. He has no say. He couldn't get free if he wanted to. He can't just, you know, summon some more discipline and say, alright, I'm going to get rid of these demons.

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exercise these demons out of me. He had no more control. He was in a place where he was captive. He was trapped because of his sinful condition. Now, demon possession is not the only example or case where this takes place, but it can also happen in a drug addiction and, you know,

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participating in witchcraft and things of the occult. It could also happen in things like sexual perversion and homosexuality, where there's this entrapment and you're caught up or bound in this sinful lifestyle. And we look at some people and we think, why even bother with them? I mean, they're so caught up in that. They're so bound in that. They're demon-possessed. That's their life. They've been that way for 45 years or whatever the case may be.

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But nobody is beyond the reach of Jesus. He's anointed by the Holy Spirit to set the captives free, to deliver them from those things that hold them, that keep them bound. And I love John 8, verse 36, where Jesus says, Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. It's a real freedom. It's a lasting freedom when He sets you free. And so Jesus came to set free the person who has been trapped by sin.

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who's been held captive because of their sinful behavior. Well, the fourth thing we see that Jesus came to do was to recover the sight of the blind. Now, we know that throughout Jesus' ministry, he healed the blind, literally those who could not see, he restored sight to many of them. But there's also a spiritual aspect of blindness that we need to consider. In John chapter 19, we see the distinction that is made between the physical blindness and the spiritual blindness.

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In John chapter 9, Jesus heals a man who had been born blind. And there's this great miracle that takes place. He's healed. Everybody's beginning to wonder and be amazed at this work and the fact that he was born blind, but now he can see again.

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And the fact that Jesus did the work. Well, it ends up that the religious leaders kick him out of the synagogue. They're like, hey, you've got to stop talking about Jesus. We don't want to hear about it. And so they kick him out. And at that time, Jesus goes and he ministers to that guy. He reveals himself to this guy who had been healed. And he says, hey, I'm the Messiah. I'm Jesus. I'm the Savior. I'm the one who healed you. And the guy's eyes are opened as he sees Jesus. He's, wow, he's blown away. He's blessed. He's blessed.

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But as Jesus is talking to him, there's some religious leaders, there's some Pharisees around the guy, and they're overhearing, they're listening to this conversation that is going on. And Jesus tells the guy who had been born blind but now healed, he says, I came into this world that those who do not see may see, and those who see may be made blind.

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Now the Pharisees overheard this and they said, hey, are we blind? Are you calling us blind? What are you saying? What are you implying, Jesus? And Jesus says, look, if you were blind, well then you wouldn't be guilty of sin. But since you insist that you can see, well then your sin remains. And so we get the idea, we understand here what he's talking about is not a physical blindness, but a spiritual blindness. That they're not aware of their sin. They're insisting they're righteous,

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And so they're blind to their sinful condition. They're blind to their need for a Savior. Now for those who are blind, those who are unaware of their need for a Savior, Jesus came to give them sight, to open their eyes. Some people are unaware. They're blind to what their sinful activity is doing in their lives and the destruction that it's bringing and the devastation that it's bringing and the consequences that it's bringing.

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Some people are unaware, they're blind to the fact that they are sinners and in need of a Savior. And Jesus came to give sight to those people, to those who will admit and recognize, I'm blind. I don't have spiritual insight. I don't really know what I need. Jesus gives sight to them.

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To those who will recognize their blindness. Now if you're like a Pharisee and you insist, no, no, I have what I need and I'm alright and I'm okay and I do this and I do that, you'll continue in your blindness. But if you come to Jesus recognizing your need for help, recognizing your need for revelation, recognizing your need for the truth of God, He gives sight. Think about the apostles in Acts chapter 4.

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There the apostles Peter and John are standing before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish rulers and leaders. And they're on trial for a miracle they performed. And Peter and John are responding with boldness to this miracle.

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group of elders to this trial that's going on. And it tells us in Acts chapter 4 verse 13 that they see the boldness of Peter and John and they realize these guys are not educated. They're not trained. They didn't go to any rabbi schools or they didn't study the Torah in any special school. They're not graduates of Harvard. They're untrained. They're uneducated. And it says then they realized that they had been with Jesus. Peter and John were fishermen.

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They weren't scholars. But they were able to speak with boldness and clarity to this group of Jewish leaders because they had been with Jesus. Because Jesus had given them spiritual insight. He'd given them and shown them the truth. And so they were able to speak boldly. Or you could think about Stephen in Acts chapter 6. In Acts chapter 6, Stephen, of course, is on trial and then ultimately he's put to death in his testimony of Jesus.

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But in Acts chapter 6 verse 10, it tells us that they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which Stephen spoke. He spoke in such a way by the power of the Holy Spirit that they couldn't refute what he was saying. All they could do was get angry and put him to death.

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Now again, Stephen was not a graduate of Harvard. He was not a graduate of, you know, the top rabbinical schools. He was a, in fact, in the church, his job was to wait on tables and to make sure that food was distributed fairly. I mean, he wasn't some brilliant scholar. He was a simple man like Peter, like John. In Luke chapter 10, it talks about Jesus as he's rejoicing.

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He sent out the disciples to preach the gospel, to heal people, to cast out demons. They come back and it's been a great time. They're rejoicing as well. And man, God did so many great things. And it tells us in Luke 10, verse 21, that Jesus praises God. He thanks God. He rejoices and said, Thanks, Father. I thank you that you've hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes, infants.

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The disciples had spiritual truth. They had revelation because Jesus came to give sight to the blind. You see, God is able to give the most simple and uneducated people spiritual insight way beyond scholars, seminary professors, or whatever you might throw in there. A person who can just barely read can have better insight than the most educated person in the world.

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If Jesus has given them sight. You see, it does not matter if you do not know Greek and Hebrew, if you know the author. Now, if you don't know the author, then you've got to learn Greek and Hebrew and do the best you can reading and studying the scriptures, trying to understand what it means, and you're not going to get very far. But you don't have to understand Greek and Hebrew to understand the scriptures if you know the one who wrote them.

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Because your relationship with God through Jesus is more effective at God communicating with you what His Word means and how it applies. And you can have more spiritual insight as you walk with God than those who've studied and studied and studied and know the original languages and all of those types of things. Because God gives it to those who come to Jesus, who recognize their blindness, who recognize their need.

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And Jesus came to give sight to the blind, to give spiritual truth to the person who has none. Well, the fifth thing we see that Jesus came to do was to set at liberty the oppressed. Again, this idea of being set free, this time not talking about captivity, but those who are beaten down, the oppressed, the bruised. And you've probably learned through your experience in life that sin is a cruel master.

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And when you are involved in sin, what it does is it oppresses you. That you live in oppression, that you are beaten down, that sin destroys your life. But even though it destroys your life and you know it destroys your life, you cannot get away from it. And you often continue those sinful practices which got you in trouble in the first place. It's a lot like my grandfather.

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Back when I was around junior high age, I spent a couple of weeks with him, five or six weeks, and there in Arkansas where he lived, and it was the last five or six weeks of his life. We didn't exactly know that at the time, but it turned out that's the way it was. He was dying of lung cancer, and we all knew that. But every day as we're with him, he's coming out of his room and he's lighting up cigarettes all day long, continuing the practice of the thing that's killing him to begin with.

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That's a lot like the way that sin is in our lives oftentimes. We know it's killing us. We know it's destroying our life. But yet we can't seem to break away from that oppression. We can't seem to break away from those habits, those activities that are destroying us. Some people are really oppressed by anger.

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And because of their rage, because of their wrath, because of their anger issues, it's bringing destruction in their life. And a person can see the destruction. They're feeling the consequences and they're losing things. They're losing people. They're driving away people. They're losing jobs. I mean, they're feeling the destruction, but they keep going back to that same condition of rage and wrath and anger. There just seems to be no escape from that oppression.

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Or you could also look at someone who's caught up in the party scene and how miserable and the consequences and the destruction that goes along with it or some type of other addiction or some type of other sinful practice. And it continues on even though you can see it's ruining your life. You continue down the path. You can't seem to break free. And the end result is the life of that person is in pieces, in shambles. It's empty.

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And yet they continue to do the things that put them there. They're not happy. They're miserable. They're beaten up. They're bloodied by this sinful condition. It's like the proverb that says, as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool does to his folly. And the dog throws up. Something made him sick. That wasn't good. He throws it up. But then later on he goes, hmm, let me try it again. Just make sure it's bad for me still. Make sure it wasn't good.

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That's what sin does. It's that type of cycle. And there's this oppression that goes along with that. Just being beaten down, held down, empty completely. Well, Jesus says, I've come to set them free, to break that cycle so that they don't continue on in that path, in that pattern and destroy their lives.

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Again, as I was preparing for this, I was looking up self-destruction and some different news articles and stuff. And if you go on a news site and look up self-destruction, right now there's that girl, Amy Winehouse. That's her name, right? Okay, Winehouse. I don't know her. But anyways, every other article is about her and the pattern of self-destruction. The things that are going on in her life and leading up to her death.

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That's the cycle. But that's what Jesus came to set people free from. Just because you're caught up in that doesn't mean you have to end up the same way. Jesus came to set us free, to break the self-destruct cycle in a person's life. Well, finally, number six, Jesus came to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

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What does that mean to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord? He says in verse 21, Today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. He says, look, right now is the time that I'm anointed by the Holy Spirit to accomplish this. Right now is the time of salvation. Jesus is saying, look, right now is the time that I'm doing this work. Right now is the time that I'm accomplishing these things in the lives of people. Right now.

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Now Jesus is coming again and Isaiah 61 goes on to talk about that. We don't know when, but we know our time is limited until he returns. But as Jesus shared that up until today and maybe tomorrow, we don't know for sure unless he returns. It's that acceptable year of the Lord right now. It's the acceptable time where God is able, where Jesus is able to heal the brokenhearted and give good news to the poor.

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Our time is limited to receive this work of Jesus, but also to share this work of Jesus with those around us. That's why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6 that now is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation. Right now, today, there's hope for the poor, for the brokenhearted, for the captives, for the oppressed, for the blind. There's hope because Jesus is anointed by the Holy Spirit to heal and to set people free.

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to do a work in their hearts. And so this morning as we consider what Jesus came to do, again I want to encourage you. First of all, for those of us believers in Jesus, you're His follower. This is what He came to do. This is what He's asked us to continue to do. He was empowered by the Spirit to do this work and then He gave us the Holy Spirit and He said, go and make disciples. But I want to encourage you to consider something as we are called to go and make disciples.

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Who is it that you are looking to make disciples of? Who is it that you're reaching out to as you seek to continue on this work of Jesus? Are you reaching out to the poor? Whether it be financially or spiritually, are you reaching out to the poor? Because Jesus came to preach the gospel to the poor. That's our responsibility. He's handed the torch off to us. Are you reaching out to the broken hearted? Are you reaching out to those who are bound in sin and captivity?

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You see, it's really easy for us, not necessarily really easy for us, but it's easier for us to kind of look at the person in the cubicle next door or the neighbor next door or, you know, the people that we're comfortable around, the people that are a lot like us and to think I need to, you know, reach out to them and share with them the truth. And that certainly is so. But look at who Jesus came to minister to. I mean, these were the people who were society had given up on them.

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And so maybe it's not just your neighbor that God wants you to reach out to, but how about the person who's there brokenhearted crying on the sidewalk? Or maybe it's not just, you know, the people in the cubicle next door, but how about the person who is begging for some extra change on your way in? What about those who are in real need? What about those who are really brokenhearted, who've lost everything? What about those who are bound in sin? They're caught up in addictions. Their life's a wreck. They've just destroyed their lives. Jesus said,

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was anointed by the Spirit to heal and to set them free. And you and I, as His followers, are anointed by the Spirit to do the same work. So we need to be reaching out, not just to the ones who it's kind of easy and comfortable for us to reach out to, but to those who really have that need, to those who are in these conditions that Jesus describes. And finally, I would ask you to consider, are you in one of these conditions? Are you poor?

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Or have you received Jesus as Savior and Lord to take care of your sin issue, to give you spiritual insight, to give you forgiveness and new life? Are you blind or beaten up by sin? Are you in that pattern of self-destruction or caught up in that cycle of sin? Today is the day of salvation. Jesus is able to set you free and make your broken heart whole. He's able to give you some good news that life is found by faith in Him.

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And so if you're in one of these conditions, let me encourage you. You need to turn to Jesus. He's got the answer you're looking for. Let's pray. God, I pray for all of our hearts. And Lord, I thank you for the work that you came to do. And Lord, that you're not done with it yet. But Lord, you continue to do this work by the power of your Holy Spirit. And so God, I pray that you would anoint and empower all of us as your disciples.

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Lord, that we would be empowered, that we would see opportunities and that we would reach out to those who are in these conditions, that you might be magnified, that your power would be known as they're set free, as they're healed, as they're restored, spiritually, physically, emotionally, in every capacity. God, we pray that you would use us for your glory. And Lord, if there's any here who do not know you or who are in one of these conditions, I pray, God, that you would not allow them to continue to be in these conditions.

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But Lord, that you would help them to recognize their need for you. Lord, that they would turn to you, that you would set them free, that you would bring healing. Lord, that you would really address and resolve the issue of their hearts. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.