[SPEAKER_00]: If you guys want to stay with me as we read the scripture together, we're going to be a Luke chapter four.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to go ahead and open up your Bible in the Luke chapter four verse 14 as where we'll start today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to read for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're now in the gospel message is here in our story of redemption.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Luke four, start of our 14.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.
[SPEAKER_00]: He taught in their synagogues and everyone praised him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom, and he stood up to read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And unrolling it, he found the place where it is written.
[SPEAKER_00]: the spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to bring to preach good news to the poor.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he began by saying to them, today, this scripture, this will fill in your hearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the word of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, you guys have a seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: stay there with me in Luke chapter 4.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be there for the most part today.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we have now turned the page into the New Testament and so look at the Messiah here in the story of redemption.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've been with us last six weeks, we've been walking through this and I'm just seeing how really God has woven together this wonderful, beautiful story throughout history from the beginning of time right up until the present day, which we'll get to
[SPEAKER_00]: in the work of his son, Jesus Christ and Messiah that he did in his life and his ministry and his death and his resurrection and his ascension as we'll talk more about next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Luke chapter 4, I want to look at really this passage that we just read and just see really what Jesus was getting at in reading Isaiah 61.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where that's from Isaiah 61.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray together and we'll jump in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, thank you so much for your word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for revealing to us all your mysteries, all the glories of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: In your Word, and in your Son, perfectly in your Son, Jesus Christ, that we could see in Him the fullness of you, all that you are, all that you are about your Word fulfilled in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so God, today, has our eyes are set upon Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: If, for the first time, somebody in this room would hear the good news of Christ, and it's fullness God, that pray that that Word would settle upon their hearts, that they would receive it, and that they would believe for their salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for all of us who have heard these stories and know these things and believe already in Jesus Christ and have turned to Him in faith before today, God, I pray that even for us, that we would so rejoice today as we read about the year of the Lord's favor that has been bestowed upon us, ushered in through the work of your Son, Jesus our Messiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we would just be so joyful and glad and ready to go and share the good news with others.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus name, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we ended last week with the exile, the exile is kind of the last little narrative of the old testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Jews, they go off into Babylon and then Persian and they are able to return to their homeland to the Promised Land later on and they rebuild their temple, they rebuild the walls around Jerusalem and they're able to settle back in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said at the end of last week though, really, as they come back, they're just not quite the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're never really quite the same as they were beforehand.
[SPEAKER_00]: The glory of the kingdoms of like David and Solomon It never reaches that place again.
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually read from me a my chapter nine last week and in that that prayer that they're praying in EMI nine They say at the end of that of the end of that of that chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: They say yeah, but
[SPEAKER_00]: even though all God you've brought us back to the land and we're here and that's all great and the exiles kind of done still were slaves in our own land and they really were.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were free but they weren't like completely free, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They were really still under the rain of Persia at the time for about another hundred years after the Old Testament ends, the Persians are still raining now.
[SPEAKER_00]: time between the book of Malakai, Old Testament, last prophet in the Old Testament, and the book of Matthew, first book in the New Testament, the time that Jesus comes on saying, that's about 400 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people call that the inter-testimensional period or the years of silence, 400 years of silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: That just means there really was no extraordinary revelations of God through His prophets during this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just sort of a quiet time as far as that goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, there was a lot going on in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a good bit going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and then Alexander the Great makes his conquest around the world and the Greek culture, the Hellenistic culture comes and really overtakes the Persian culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Greece is over everything, and then after that is the Empire of Rome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rome takes over in the first century, and in about 68 AD, I believe it is Pompeii of Rome, he comes in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he becomes like it kind of takes over the rule of Judea of Israel and now still even though they're there are free people and able to practice their religion and their society pretty freely They're still heavily taxed and they're ultimately occupied by the Roman
[SPEAKER_00]: Empire.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have a King, King Herod, King Herod the Great when Jesus is born, King Herod, Antsipos when Jesus is doing his ministry, but they're not even actually technically Jewish people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're Ido Mayans set in place by the Roman government.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're the kings of the Jews, but they're not really the kings of the Jews, which is why, by the way, in the birth story of Jesus, why Herod gets very offended when the wise men show up and ask.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's the king of the Jews?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's he born?
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's like, I need to kill all these babies, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm the king of the Jews, but they know he's really not the Romans put him there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want you to see before we really jump into this today, the sovereignty of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been talking about the sovereignty of God all through this story and how God's hand has been so evident, right, through everything that we've seen, everything that these people have been through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even in this quiet period of 400 years between the old and new testaments, we see the sovereignty of God one, the language of the area is now coin a Greek.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's common Greek.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not everybody would have spoken that every day necessarily, like Jesus probably spoke Aramaic predominantly,
[SPEAKER_00]: But everybody would pretty well know how to read and write and speak Greek, especially if you're educated, but even common people, they would be able to understand Greek pretty well.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the Old Testament was translated during this time into Greek.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Septuagint is what we call that, it's the Greek Old Testament, and that's probably what Jesus was reading when he unrolled the scroll of Isaiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was reading Coine Greek, the Septuagint of the Hebrew scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: not only the Jews could understand the Hebrew Scriptures, but the Greeks and the Romans could understand the Hebrew Scriptures, which is pretty amazing, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: God had done that in his sovereignty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, what were the Romans known for in their empire?
[SPEAKER_00]: What infrastructure did they build?
[SPEAKER_00]: roads, roads, a lot of different things, right, aqueducts and all those things, but roads really like the Roman roads existed throughout their empire.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as we're gonna really see next week as the gospel begins to go into the world, how can it go so easily and freely?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there's this road infrastructure built now by the Roman culture, that under the sovereignty and providence, of course, of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And finally,
[SPEAKER_00]: really the religious state of things at this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Jesus comes, really there there's kind of this mix of the paganism of the Greco-Roman cultures, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They were pantheistic, you know, the gods of Zeus and all those guys, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's the things that they talked about and believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: really mythology and those, but they were ultimately very paganistic in their culture very worldly, but then also the Jewish people had these two leadership groups that kind of rose through this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Pharisees and the Sadducees, now the Sadducees were very worldly, very kind of the wealthy to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: People very worldly also in their religious expression and they really kind of liked the worldliness of the Roman culture and ultimately indulged a good bit in that, but then there was the hyper-religious group called the Pharisees who just loved to
[SPEAKER_00]: Like put heavy burdens on people Jesus talks to them a lot about these things and how they would express their religiosity and kind of weigh down the people in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all that to say, Jews and Gentiles alike during this time, during the time that Jesus shows up, they're pretty much disillusioned with a lot of religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're frustrated with the whole thing because you got the the Greco Roman world that's just pagan and and all that stuff and kind of mythology and it's all kind of wacko and weird and then you got the Jewish stuff that's just man it's a lot of worldliness and the rich are the ones who get preference and but then the Pharisees are just the ones who are super legalistic and all that so everybody's just kind of like man there's got to be something better than this you know and that is the world that Jesus steps into that's the world that he's born into
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we know the story of Jesus's birth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we're coming up on Christmas here in a few weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll start going through that stuff pretty soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I just want to jump into when he begins his ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right here in Luke chapter 4.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the beginning of Jesus' public ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he goes to the, he says he goes to Nazareth where he was brought up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes into the synagogue.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's important like he's going where he was raised, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's kind of starting where he started.
[SPEAKER_00]: Goes to Nazareth where he was raised, goes into the synagogue as was his custom.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a rabbi at this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's a teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: As he goes into the synagogue, they hand him the scroll of Isaiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was tradition on the Sabbath day that you would read from probably due to Ronomy and a prophet.
[SPEAKER_00]: So due to Ronomy, the law and a prophet would be read on the Sabbath day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, actually today, Jewish tradition today because we're not exactly sure if Jesus just chose Isaiah 61 because he knew this passage was here or if it was actually the intended reading for the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was maybe it wasn't if it was today Jewish tradition would tell us that Isaiah 61 was read on the day of atonement.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's very, that's a very big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that was the day it didn't say it here, maybe it was the day of its home in the day of its home, it was the day that the high priest would go behind the curtain in the temple and offer sacrifice for all the people with the sacrificial blood of a lamb.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is amazing, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: If that was the exact day, but in any case, Jesus is handed the scroll of Isaiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: probably a giant scroll and he unrolled it 61 chapters they didn't have chapter numbers but he unrolled it to the place of this chapter go read Isaiah 61 one and two this is this is it and he says and he reads here's what he's reading the spirit of the Lord is on me
[SPEAKER_00]: because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, the spirit of the Lord is on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how that begins.
[SPEAKER_00]: The chapter before this, Jesus, he goes to John the Baptist, his cousin at the Jordan River and he is baptized in the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it says that as he comes out of the water, heavens open, the heavens open up, and descending upon Jesus like a dove is what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who the Holy Spirit?
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Spirit descends upon him, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says, the Spirit of Lord is upon me, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And He has anointed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So think about this for a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the parallelism here for a second as we talked about the very beginning of all things in the creation, God created the heavens and the earthness as the Spirit of the Lord hovered over the waters.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And here, Jesus, as he comes out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord comes and hovers over Jesus to anoint Him for His ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right after that, what happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness, into a place where He would be tempted.
[SPEAKER_00]: as Adam and Eve were tempted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is getting the full range of human experience here as he begins his ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Adam and Eve think about the parallelism but also the kind of the upside downness of this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Adam and Eve and a paradise together having all the food that they could eat and they fail the temptation test.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus in the wilderness not a paradise alone not with
[SPEAKER_00]: What's he doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's starting new things here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's upside-downing what was made.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's right side-uping what was made upside-down at the fall, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's undoing this, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we've already seen these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now in chapter four, he's beginning his ministry by saying, The spirit of the Lord has anointed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, anointing for the Jewish people, they would understand, Who's anointed?
[SPEAKER_00]: King's prophets and priests are anointed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're anointed by somebody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: God would ultimately do that, but they would send a prophet or a priest to anoint the next prophet or a priest or king, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says, the Spirit of the Lord has anointed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: No man has anointed Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody has started his ministry for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus and the power of God and the Holy Spirit alone has now stepped into the beginning of his ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has been anointed.
[SPEAKER_00]: to start and to go and to do the ministry that his father has sent him to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what does the thing he says that he's come to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the first thing he says to preach good news to the poor?
[SPEAKER_00]: preach good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: The good, the word good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of y'all translations in your Bible probably say, what, gospel, ain't I got gospel in your Bible?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: You won't get me honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Greek word, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They would know good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Jews would understand good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Greeks would understand good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: That word gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would understand that word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Typically, the good news that they would hear in the world was things like the Emperor had a son.
[SPEAKER_00]: who was born a baby son was born and so runners would come into town and they would proclaim gospel gospel the son is born right this is good news to them they understood that or a victory had been won but the armies off it battle and then the runner would come into town after the victory was one and they would bring their beautiful feet you know that that scripture a beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news they would run they would run they would run and they would get to town and they would proclaim gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: victory is won, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is gospel to them in their world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when they hear Jesus saying, I've come to preach gospel, I bet they're anticipating this, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to hear, what is the good news?
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you preaching to us?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, I've come to bring this good news to who?
[SPEAKER_00]: To the poor.
[SPEAKER_00]: the poor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And y'all, that's a theme throughout Jesus' ministry, that his work, that his ministry, that his gospel, that he's bringing, it's not for the elites like just the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just for the powerful like the Romans.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's for the uneducated.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's for children.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's for the broken and the hurting and the enslaved.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's for women and children, it's for men, it's for everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jew and Gentile and Samaritan, Jesus came to bring good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: To all people.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what he's coming to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the good news?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is that good news?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think typically as Christians, when we think about good news and for me a long time, as I thought about gospel, as I thought about good news, it was just simply, yeah, Jesus died on a cross to save me from my sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, that's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Praise God, that's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to get to that today, but there's more to the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe what Jesus is doing in reading Isaiah 61 is he's unpacking for us the more.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's unpacking for us the glory of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what he says, four things, four things that I believe he's hitting on about what the gospel is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, he says, he has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners, sent me to proclaim, freedom to the prisoners.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that word, prisoners is typically used for prisoners of war.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is he talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the narratives that we've heard so far of the history of Israel, the history of God's people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about the exile.
[SPEAKER_00]: freedom to those who have been captive in war, freedom to those who no longer have a nation, no longer have a purpose, no longer have an identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've come to proclaim the exile is done now in my name, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the good news of the gospel, y'all the exile for the Jewish people, the exile was destruction.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was discipline and it was distress.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no true freedom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they were free to practice their religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were free to kind of keep their festivals in their laws.
[SPEAKER_00]: But ultimately, Caesar was Lord for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they paid taxes to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Roman governor was the law keeper of the land.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Herod was there, but really pilot was the governor.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the law there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had no national identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: this freedom that Jesus is proclaiming would be the freedom to become what God had always promised them, they would be, they will be my people, and I will be there God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the promise of the God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the Zekeal 37, 23, read that last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's number one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, he says, I've come to proclaim what?
[SPEAKER_00]: This good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Recovery of sight to the blind.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened when Adam and Eve sinned and sin entered into the world?
[SPEAKER_00]: The creation begins to fall apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go read the book of Romans chapter 80 says, the creation was subjected to futility in that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I hope that one day it will be brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus is saying, I'm ushering this sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm undoing what was done in the curse, not just sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: But death and pain and disease and suffering of all kinds, Jesus has come to undo this ultimately.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't get it wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: We still live in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is still broken, but this is what he's ushered in.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what he's inaugurated and what he's working towards.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to talk more about that in the next couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: But think about the things Jesus does in his ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the story when John the Baptist gets arrested,
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Luke chapter nine, John the Baptist gets arrested, and he's putting a prisoner.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sends a word to Jesus, it's cousin like, hey, man, aren't you the Messiah?
[SPEAKER_00]: Aren't you the one who was to come like I'm struggling with that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus answers him by saying, Matthew 9 18 through 23, the blind can see.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lame are walking.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lepers are cleansed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The death can hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: The dead are raised.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed is here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does not fall away on account of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying, I'm on doing my work here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm bringing in this new creation that I promised that my father promised would come.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's undoing the curse upon creation, proving himself to be Lord of all creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the other things that he does.
[SPEAKER_00]: He casts out demons.
[SPEAKER_00]: He cures diseases, he turns water into wine, he multiplies bread and fish, he gives Peter and John, a miraculous catch of fish on multiple occasions.
[SPEAKER_00]: He walks on water, he stops storms with a word, and when he does that one, one of the disciples go, they say, who is this guy?
[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of man is this?
[SPEAKER_00]: He speaks to storms and they stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer is, I have come to prove that I am Lord of all creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the one who started it in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the one who says what storms can and cannot do, what diseases can and cannot do, what blindness can and cannot do, what ultimately death can and cannot do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus calls the shots of these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what He has come to declare.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep reading.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says recovery of sight to the blind and to release the oppressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: To release the oppressed, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is about suffering and oppression.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is about slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is the Exodus?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like these great grand narrative of Israel's history, the Exodus probably right at the center of all that, when they thought about themselves as God's people, they thought about themselves as a free people free from what we are not slaves.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what made Israel who they were in God's economy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about Exodus chapter three, when God first meets with Moses in that burning bush.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Exodus 37 and 8, he says, I have seen the suffering of my people in their slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have come, this way says, I have come down to rescue them, to set free the oppressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, thousands of years before Jesus came, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I have come down.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a common theme through the scripture that God would condescend to us, that He would stoop down to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now fully and finally in the person of His Son Jesus, He has literally, quite literally, put on flesh and stepped down into time to set free all who are in slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of slavery are we in as human beings?
[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of slavery?
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: The slavery of sin, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of us born under the curse as descendants of Adam and Eve in that curse.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus came to forgive our sins, but we're also slaves to death because of sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are no longer allowed to eat from the tree of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what happened in the fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are kicked out of the garden, and now the tree of life is distant from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They cannot get to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually guarded.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now Jesus is coming to say, I have come to give you life and give it to you eternally in me and all who trust in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, we are slaves to the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: Given in the Exodus, two Moses, the law which binds us by its rules, by its commandments to follow them and yet we are unable to do that perfectly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus said this in Matthew 5, 17, I have come not to abolish the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: The law is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's law is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I didn't come to abolish it, but to fulfill it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus came to complete everything that redemptive history had said we need.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything that God was calling His people into, Jesus came to fulfill it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have come to set slaves free.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about these stories of Jesus setting people free from various things.
[SPEAKER_00]: A woman who was bleeding for 12 years touches the fringe of his garment one day, and she is free from her suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: a woman caught in adultery, bound by the law, a slave to the law that demands her death for the adultery that she has committed and what does Jesus do?
[SPEAKER_00]: He sets her free.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go and leave your life of sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what he says to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the woman at the well and John four.
[SPEAKER_00]: A slave to the opinions of the people that she lived around, a slave to the lifestyle and the circumstances that she'd been in her entire life up to this point in Jesus' sets or free now by his own gospel to go back into town and share the story of the good news of the Messiah that she just met.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about this man in Mark chapter 5, possessed by demons running around the tombs, quite literally in chains.
[SPEAKER_00]: bound in slavery to his own sin and the demonic oppression that he'd been living in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus sets him free.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if any story though, illustrates this as well as Luke chapter five, Luke five, 17th through 26.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a paralyzed man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is teaching in a house and his friends is paralyzed man's friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: They bring him on a mat.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll know this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: They bring him.
[SPEAKER_00]: They carry him.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're trying to get to Jesus but the crowds are really thick and they can't get to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they go up on the roof of the house and they break a hole like we all need friends like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guys like we'll break a hole and it's like good commit vandalism to get you to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they break a hole, they lower him down in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: This guy thinks, man, Jesus, this healer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to set me free from my paralysation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: They lay him on the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says, son, your sins are forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a different slavery that he had no idea he was even in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus is saying, this is what I've come to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can, and he actually says because the people start thinking and he knows their thoughts and he goes, why are you thinking, how can this man forgive sins?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is easier to say, get up and walk or to say your sins are forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the slavery that Jesus came ultimately to free us from.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brothers and sisters, listen, do not be a slave.
[SPEAKER_00]: do not be a slave.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any longer, if you feel like right now today, you're a slave of, I'm not gonna name all the things of what you may feel enslaved to, but if you feel today, if you know today and your heart of hearts that you are bound in something, don't be a slave.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trust another Jesus to Messiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: the greater Moses, who has come to set us free to lead us out of Egypt, to lead us through the Red Sea, to lead us into the Promised Land and not just temporarily as a temporary nation on the earth, but eternally as the kingdom of God, free in Him we are His people, He is our God.
[SPEAKER_00]: be free in Jesus Christ, but there's one more thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, proclaim freedom to the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, release the oppressed, and number four, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
[SPEAKER_00]: proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this is a reference to what the Jews would call the year of Jubilee.
[SPEAKER_00]: the year of Jubilee.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a fun word, Jubilee.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, Leviticus 2510, if you want to go read about the year of Jubilee.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leviticus 2510, what the year of Jubilee was was this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So every seven years, the Jews had a Sabbath year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, every seven days was a Sabbath today.
[SPEAKER_00]: every seven years was a Sabbath year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after seven of those seven, so okay, seven years of seven is 49 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: So on the 50th year, they proclaim that the year Jubilee Jubilee literally means to blow the Ramshorn.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were like blow this Ramshorn.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was the year of Jubilee.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was proclaimed over the land.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the 50th year, the year of Jubilee.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on the year of Jubilee, here's what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Land was restored to every family that had belonged to.
[SPEAKER_00]: In dentured servants and slaves were now free to go back to their homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every debt listened to this, every debt was wiped clean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you imagine the debts you have in your life right now on the 50th year?
[SPEAKER_00]: They just go, you're free from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: No more that you owe nothing on that any more that was the year of Jubilee and Jesus says as he reads as a 61 this prophecy of the Messiah I have come to proclaim the year of the Lord's
[SPEAKER_00]: favor, this is what he came to proclaim, and to achieve that mankind could actually be right with God and right with each other, because that's what Jubilee was about.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was about restoring relationship between us and God and us to one another, that we could live in Jubilee.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could live in the Lord's favor, not because of our good works, not because we've earned that, but because Jesus came to usher in that, to give us that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I came to proclaim it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not to give you what you deserve.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can give you what you don't deserve.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just to proclaim the year of the Lord's favorite.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: How?
[SPEAKER_00]: How, how would he do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: How would he do any of that that we just talked about?
[SPEAKER_00]: How would he proclaim freedom to prisoners?
[SPEAKER_00]: How would he give recovery of sight to the blind?
[SPEAKER_00]: How could he release the oppressed?
[SPEAKER_00]: How could he proclaim the year of the Lord's favor?
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, for centuries, God had patience on mankind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, if you go read Romans 3, 21 through 26, he talks about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: God had laid up his wrath in forbearance
[SPEAKER_00]: and he had actually given his people away in which they could sort of put aside their sins temporarily through the sacrificial system, the blood of goats and bulls offered day after day, year after year, decade and season after season that they would offer these sacrifices.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it would come to pass, it would have to come to pass at some point that goats and bulls were no longer enough to satisfy the judgment of a just God.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were paying for human sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it had to be a human death to pay the debt of this sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all listen, there could be no Jubilee, there could be no favor of God, unless this price was paid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody had to pay it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is, you and I can't pay it, the Jews couldn't pay it, the Gentiles couldn't pay it, because we're sinners!
[SPEAKER_00]: We deserve whatever we get, we have debt upon debt, upon debt that has been stacked upon our shoulders that we can, not redeem.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't pay for it, we can't at home for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would have to be a human, but it would have to be a perfect human.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the only one who could do it, could there ever be a man, could there ever be a person who could pay the debt that humanity would owe?
[SPEAKER_00]: There could be one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would have to be the only begotten son of God, not born from a man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only had one father as name as God in heaven and his mother, Mary, a virgin, gave birth to him so that he could come and be a sinless man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He proved that in his temptation and the desert, and the desert,
[SPEAKER_00]: could pay the price that we owe for our debt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so throughout his ministry, Jesus would speak of this this coming moment when he would pay.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he would purchase all the things that he just said that he came to do, he would say things like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's Mark 1045.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I'm the good shepherd.
[SPEAKER_00]: The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, this scripture must be fulfilled in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Isaiah 53.
[SPEAKER_00]: He quotes, he was numbered with the transgressors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke 2237.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said in that moment of the last supper, this cup, the cup of redemption that they were drinking, they would drink four cups at the meal, this was the cup of redemption, I told you redemption requires a payment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, this cup is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins and he would do just that exactly what he said he would do.
[SPEAKER_00]: That he had stepped down from his throne, that he had come to the world that he created and that he would allow at the hands of sinful men to be nailed on to a cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: John chapter 19, if you want to turn there with me, John 19.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the very end of Jesus' life, as he hangs upon that cross, John records his death this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: This John 19 verse 28, he'd been hanging there at this point for six hours upon the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three years of ministry, six hours on a cross excruciating pain, suffering, torture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 28, and he said, later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the scripture would be fulfilled, and Jesus said, I'm thirsty.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that all that was now completed when it said that Jesus knew, all was now completed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that is what he's talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he's looking back over redemptive history and going, I have met, and I have completed, and I have fulfilled everything for my people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have done all the work that the Father sent me to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have checked every box done, everything, except one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: As he hangs upon, can you imagine the wear with all?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you imagine having this kind of presence in that moment to think of one thing he hadn't yet done?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was prophesied that this suffering servant would be thirsty.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus wasn't satisfied being 99.9% our Savior.
[SPEAKER_00]: As he hangs on the cross, he knew all of it was done except one thing and so he says, I'm thirsty, I'm thirsty and a jar of wine vinegar was there and so they soaked it on a sponge and they put the sponge on a stalk of his plant and they lifted it to Jesus lips and we knew when he had received the drink Jesus said, say this with me, it is finished and with that he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: a lot of y'all know that coin a Greek again, coin a Greek was the common language.
[SPEAKER_00]: Written by John here, coin a Greek, the word is to tell a style.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is finished to tell a style.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means exactly that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is finished, but it was a word, it was a decree.
[SPEAKER_00]: To tell a style was a decree stamped onto debts that had been paid by debt collectors.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you brought your debt and it was actually satisfied, it was full, it was dumb, there would stamp on there to tell a style.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus said, I came to bring in what the year of the Lord's favor, the year of Jubilee, and in the year of Jubilee, nobody has debt anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are no debts.
[SPEAKER_00]: The debts are paid, and so everyone who would look upon the Messiah on the cross, shrust in him for their salvation, bow before him in repentance and faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your debt is paid right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Done.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's Jubilee now, it's Jubilee, it's Jubilee for the people of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have favor from God upon us, not because we've done anything good, because Jesus did everything good, and He paid for our sins and our transgressions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so then there's more, y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's more think about the way that the New Testament writers then explain what Jesus did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the Apostle Paul, when he would write things like 2 Corinthians 5, 17, when we are in Christ,
[SPEAKER_00]: You are a new, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're a new creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, the old is gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: The new, his come.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, Romans 323, that all have sent and fall short of the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Romans 623, that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Christ Jesus, he says in 2 Corinthians 1, 20, that in Christ Jesus every single promise of God finds its yes in amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: that in Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life, set me free from the law of sin and death, set me free from the law of sin and death.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says in Ephesians chapter 2, but in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away, talking to the Gentiles, these people who were not the nation of Israel, you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ, for He Himself is our peace who has made the two one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of our stability by abolishing in His flesh the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: with its commandments and regulations.
[SPEAKER_00]: His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two that's Jew and Gentile, all people thus making peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in this one body, something about his body on the cross, in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death, their hostility.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a new nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jew and Gentile alike and in Colossians chapter two.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you are once dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, but now in Christ Jesus you are alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the written code that was against us and that stood opposed to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took it away!
[SPEAKER_00]: nailing it to the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you hear the language that Paul is using as he writes the new testament to explain what it means to be in Christ?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's using the language of redemptive history.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's using the language that the Jews would understand or the Greeks would understand as they read the Old Testament as they see Jesus really has done everything that God said he would do is now complete in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's done all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you understand if you don't understand why we sing?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why Christians sing, y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: We sing joyfully and gladly and humbly before him because he's paid the price for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Luke chapter 4, back to that as we end up.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did Jesus say?
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, He came to preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom to the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, or release the oppressed, proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and then says this, first 20, he rolled up the scroll.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gave it back to the attendant and he sat down.
[SPEAKER_00]: The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him when a rabbi sits down.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's I'm about to teach you something.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it means.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he sits down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's watching him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 21, and he began by saying to them one thing, today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of it done.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hadn't done this yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hadn't gone to the cross yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was three years away.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did Jesus know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why could he say it like it was present tense?
[SPEAKER_00]: This scripture is fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_00]: How could he say that?
[SPEAKER_00]: He could say that for this reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think rationality and logic will get you so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is all logical.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is all rational.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes sense if you understand why Jesus had to do, what Jesus had to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that doesn't really completely explain the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does it?
[SPEAKER_00]: How could Jesus know that he would complete the mission?
[SPEAKER_00]: logic it was love, John 3 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, who ever believes in him, who ever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.
[SPEAKER_00]: For Jesus, this was complete based upon the promises of God, the God who is the God of love.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was as sure as his father's love for the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how sure Jesus was.
[SPEAKER_00]: He and his father from all eternity had agreed, our love will complete this, our love for humanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the love that he has poured out for us and his death on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, let this be known today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the Messiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the only begotten Son of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is Lord, and He is Savior, and He has completed.
[SPEAKER_00]: To tell us that He has filled up all that was written in the Word of God from the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: By His death, He has made sufficient payment for the forgiveness of our sins and the redemption of our souls and our bodies from the slavery of sin and death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He commands men everywhere to repent and believe in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: that is what the Messiah commands.
[SPEAKER_00]: It demands a lot, listen, this demands a response from you today.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've already responded and you've received this, then praise God and I hope your response today is, let me go share this good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you've never responded to this, if you've never put your faith in Jesus today's the day of salvation,
[SPEAKER_00]: today's the day to see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's the day to believe it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This red string, this red thread of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: It runs right through history and it runs right into this room today and I pray it would run into your heart that you would see and believe he is the Messiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the King.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no other and I will bow before him as Lord and Savior and if we do, then we will be new creations in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Children of God and Christ Jesus, a new nation in a kingdom in Christ Jesus and it will be declared
[SPEAKER_00]: and my life and over the church that we have entered into the year of the Lord's favor, Jubilee for all who believe in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so listen, let's do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you guys would stand with me, let's just stand together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to sing one more song, bands gonna come out here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to sing one more song and praise this Jesus today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just encourage you, listen, just let your heart rejoice that he really is who he says he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's really done all that the scripture said he would do and he is Lord and Savior.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you are wrestling right now with whether or not you need to confess him today, confess him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will stand before that Messiah one day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you've been in this room today.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will have no excuse to say I didn't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You put your faith in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let me pray for you, God, thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for the Messiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're anointed one who has come and has completed all that you set.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God, we praise you now.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just lift our voices and sing to you now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we trust in you, God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We love you, God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your love for us in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we pray this in His name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.