Salvation is for the Destitute (Luke 4:16–30)

• Today on Grace to You, Jesus is the spiritual liberator. As the himmwriter said, he breaks the power of canceled sin. He sets the prisoner free. You’ll never know the truth about the gospel until you know the savior of the gospel. Put your trust in Christ. You want to find out if Christianity is true? Cry out to the Lord to save you.
• You’ll find out really fast. What in the world makes us so embarrassed about the gospel? For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him [Music] [Music] crucified. So you can open your Bible if you will to Luke chapter 4. And we’re going to be looking starting at verse 16.
• A number of years ago, I was asked a question actually by a rabbi who asked me, “If people know the facts about Jesus Christ, why don’t they acknowledge him as savior?” What what causes people to resist that? And just recently I had a similar conversation with someone who said when people know the truth why is it that they don’t receive Christ as their savior really that comes down to one great reality and this passage will reveal that to us.
• So we come to Luke chapter 4 and Jesus is in Galilee. Now this is part of his Galilean ministry. This is where he begins his year and a half ministry in Galilee having returned there and he’s operating. Verse 14 says in the power of the spirit news about him is spreading all through the surrounding district. He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all.
• So things look initially very good. So he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and this is the most familiar place to him and uh as was his custom he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. Synagogues were essentially a house of instruction. And the way they basically ordered that was they had a a set prescribed pattern of reading the Old Testament.
• And that is what is happening as we open the door to the synagogue in Nazareth. On this occasion, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. This is the first time that we know of that Jesus actually took an official position in the synagogue as a reader, which meant he would read the prescribed passage and he would give an exposition of that passage.