Red Village Church Podcast

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Audio Transcript And the ruin of that house was great. It’s not God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me? Lord, we pray that you would indeed speak through the preaching of your word. Lord, please help me to communicate this text. Well, Lord, please keep me from error, but to speak only that which is true. Lord, we do pray that you give the congregation here just ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. And Lord, please bring much glory to Jesus in this time. It’s in his name we pray. Amen. So let me share with you a story I think I may have shared in the past, but I think it’s been a little while since I’ve done it. It’s like every good story starts with me. So there we were. And this was when I was still in college and I had a summer job working for a carpenter who actually specialized in building log homes. Now, for me, my main job was donut pickup guy for the morning break. But I also had a number of other trivial jobs that come alongside some of the main carpenters just to kind of help them do their thing in ways to help them be efficient and able to concentrate on doing quality work. Well, in this story, one of the days when I was assisting one of the carpenters, things are just not coming together. So we just finished putting on the decking over the basement of the house, which I should mention was a huge home. This is the biggest home. The owner of the building company had to up to this point. But as we put the decking on and started to lay out the exterior walls, things were just not coming together. The walls were not lining up according to plan, even though from what we could tell, we were laying things out according to the blueprints. So after a while trying to figure things out on our own, trying to figure out why things are not coming together according to the design, the carpenter that I was assisting called over to the owner of the company to see if he could help us just understand why things were not working the way they should have. Which led to the owner also looking at the blueprints where he started to measure things out on the exterior walls. But as he did that, things were not coming for together for him either. So for the next, I don’t know, 30 minutes or so, we’re all scratching our heads trying to figure out what the issue was. Why were things not going the way they were designed? Why were they not coming together? Where did things go wrong? Only for the owner to realize what was wrong had nothing to do with the blueprints, nothing to do with the measurements of the walls, rather the basement foundation that was poured, the one that the company owner laid out like he didn’t do it right. So in the hustle and bustle, I’m sure the pressure excitement of building his biggest home to date, he got a little distracted. And the measurements, the layout of the foundation was off something like a foot or two, which might not seem like a big deal, but just that little bit off of the foundation put everything else off. And with everything because that was off, we just could not move forward. Because if we did so, not only did the house not come together according to plan, the house would have been structurally vulnerable, set up for a huge fall with the foundation off, everything else was off as well. Now, I tell you that story this morning to hopefully set us up for our text, a study, which is the final section, often referred to as the Sermon on the Plain, which is something we’ve been studying the last few weeks. This is called Sermon on the Plane, because in Luke 6 we see that the sermon that Jesus gave was to a great crowd of disciples, a great multitude of people from all over the region, while he gave this, while standing on a level place, a plane. So I mentioned a few times, and I’ll mention again here, this sermon plane is similar, but yet a little different to perhaps Jesus most famous sermon. The sermon is referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, which the Lord gave on the side of a mountain, which you can read about in Matthew, starting in chapter five of Matthew. And the sex is very similar, but different. In fact, the sermon is very similar, but different, including how similar actually is, how it ends. Both those sermons, the Sermon on the Mount, Sermon on the Plain, end very similarly. And I do think it’s important for us to see that each of these end with a very similar challenge to the listeners. A challenge that’d be good for us to hear this morning as well. A challenge that is meant to cut to our hearts, to show if our hearts indeed do beat for Jesus or not. So we’re talking more about this kind of throughout the sermon. Let me also just mention before we get dive back into the text, that throughout this sermon on the plain, Jesus is primarily speaking towards his disciples. So yes, it’s mentioned there’s a great crowd around Jesus from all over the region who he was speaking to as well in the sermon. But the primary audience for this sermon, the Sermon on the Plain, was his many disciples, as Jesus was helping them understand what it looks like to follow after him. Understanding if we’re going to Follow after Jesus. We need to follow him not just in word, but also in deed, meaning to be a disciple of Jesus, not simply acknowledging that Jesus is the Lord. We were to follow him joyfully submitting our life to him and as the Lord as the foundation of our life, where our desire is to build everything about our life off of him, knowing that if Jesus is not our foundation, everything is going to be off, which in terms of the plains, well, as the sermon, the Mount, everything be off in the most tragic and terrifying ways. Without Jesus as the foundation of one’s life, we are set up for a great fall. Okay, so that is the introduction. Please look back with me at the text, starting in verse 33, where Jesus spoke to the congregation on the plane by giving them another parable or illustration to help them understand, like an important spiritual truth. So in the text, verse 43, Jesus says, for no good tree bears bad fruit. Nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its fruit. I’ll just say pause here for a second. Clearly here in this parable illustration, Jesus is using trees as a metaphor to address one’s heart, which is the thing that Jesus is after. He wants our heart. He deserves our heart. So in this illustration, when our hearts are good in ways that they’re good before God, because God has birthed inside us a new heart, we’re in the grace of God, he takes out like a heart of stone, that actually we’re all born with a heart that’s like spiritually dead before God in sin, that by his grace he gives us a new birth, he puts in a new heart, a heart of flesh, which is a heart that now beats for God. A heart that knows God, or better said, is known by God as his own. Because a new heart, this heart of flesh, this very spirit dwells within. The very presence of God, fills that heart. So from that new heart that was graciously given to us by God, now good things come out of it. Not bad things, not bad fruit. But in the text, good things, good fruit, which are good things. Good fruit that honor God, that communicate worship towards God. They have a real love for God, a desire to bring glory to God. In the New Testament, these good things, or these good fruit that come out of a new heart, it’s often referred to as the fruit of the spirit. Good fruit, not bad fruit. So Galatians 5 says this. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. So in this sermon, Jesus, in this illustration on the positive, when the heart is good because of God, putting a new heart like a good tree, good fruit will come from us. As a good tree does not produce bad fruit, a new good heart will not be characterized by having bad fruit. However, then on the negative, the challenge of warning for those who do not have the spirit of God dwelling inside, where they have not experienced, like, this new birth, where they do not have a new heart, where they’re still spiritually dead in their sins, spiritually dead before God, where they have this, like, heart of stone. Scripture refers to a heart that does not beat for God, does not desire to bring him glory. In the text, like a bad tree, they will not produce good fruit, Meaning they will not live a life seeking to worship God, obey God, love God, bring glory to God. Rather, without a new birth, the spiritually dead heart will produce fruit, which the New Testament refers to as like the works of the flesh. So once again, Book of Galatians, now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. None of these things are good fruit. None of these things bring honor and glory to God. No, just a few things before we keep moving on. First, I just want to address maybe a couple related questions you have here. And then after that, I want to just stress something essential for us to see and understand in this passage. So first question, potential questions you might have. Does this mean that if one is a Christian who has a new heart, does this mean that, like, bad or sinful things cannot come out of them, where they’ll never sin, never do anything wrong? The answer is life is unfortunately, bad things, sinful things, even for Christians, for disciples of Jesus, unfortunately, these still will happen. Or, unfortunately, we still will stumble and fall in many ways. And if one says that he’s, like, not a sinner, not capable of sinning, like Scripture tells, like, they’re a liar and the truth is not in them. So Jesus is getting here. It’s not that we’re going to be perfect where we only give good fruit, but what he is saying is, like, bad, sinful things, bad fruit. These things will not mark our live

Audio Transcript Well, good morning everyone. My name is Zeke and I am a member here at Red Village and I’m on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. So I work with college students at UW Madison, seeking to reach the campus with the Gospel and equipping students for a life of sharing the Gospel, studying Scripture and pursuing God, both during their time in college and for the rest of their lives. It is a joy and an honor once again to bring you God’s word this morning and continue on where we left off in Habakkuk. Now that might be a confusing sentence to some of you since the last time that I preached on Habakkuk was April of 2024. So I’m not expecting you all to remember everything, just most of what I said last time. But it’s been a minute. So for a lot of what I’m going to talk about today, the context of this lesser known book is pretty needed. So with that in mind, I’m going to begin with some context of what has happened so far in the Book of Habakkuk and where the Book of Habakkuk is placed in the context of the Bible. So Habakkuk is one of the minor prophets which is found towards the end of the Old Testament. So it’s about 2/3 of the way through your Bible. This book was written somewhere from around 615 to 600 BC after the fall of the Assyrian Empire and during the rise of the Babylonians, but before the beginning of the Babylonian exile of Judah. So here’s a bit of a rundown of where we are in the history of Israel. King David is a good grasping point for us to begin in highlighting where this is happening. Contextually, he’s a pretty familiar guy. So he’s king of the twelve tribes of Israel and has a son Solomon, who becomes king and builds a magnificent temple to the Lord. But because of Solomon’s sin, and that he is not fully following God with his whole heart, God says that he will tear 10 of the tribes of Israel away from his family. Solomon dies. And after a huge mess of war, idolatry and lots of sin, the twelve tribes of Israel split into two kingdoms referred to as Israel. The northern kingdom composed of 10 of the tribes and Judah and the tribe of Benjamin. Israel immediately set up two golden calves to worship so the people wouldn’t go to Solomon’s temple in Judah. And Israel was a very wicked nation for most all of its existence. After about 200 years of this, we see in Isaiah the prophesied and fulfilled Judgment on Israel as the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom. After the kingdom split, Judah followed God some of the time, but was still often consumed by idol worship and other evils. Habakkuk is written in Judah around 300 years after the kingdom split, or like 350 years after King David died and about 100 years after the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians. This is around the same time of the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and is all leading up to when the Babylonian empire would lay siege on Judah. This is all also taking place before the exile, so before Israel lives in captivity in Babylon, before Daniel, before Esther, and especially before the books written about the return of the exiles like Ezra, Nehemiah. As for structure, the book of Habakkuk consists of two complaints from Habakkuk the prophet and God’s responses to those complaints. And the book ends with a psalm of faith. Habakkuk’s first complaint is him crying out to God because of the wickedness in Judah. He says that justice never goes forth and the wicked surround the righteous. His complaint is that it seems like God isn’t doing anything to punish the wickedness and sin happening in Judah, and it is just being allowed to continue. God responds to this first complaint with something very different than what Habakkuk was probably expecting or hoping for. God promises destruction of Judah by the Chaldeans or the Babylonians as they’re also known. Habakkuk’s second complaint is one in response to this. He is in shock as he asks God how. How can he do this? How can he turn Judah over to a vile and wicked nation more evil and idolatrous than Judah itself? And he asks, how can it be good and right for God to raise up such an evil nation to destroy Judah? God answers Habakkuk’s second complaint in two parts. First, which is what I covered in my last sermon by telling Habakkuk that the righteous shall live by faith. Or in other words, righteous people should faithfully trust God’s plans to declare that although it is difficult for him to understand, God’s plan is what is most good and absolutely just. And Habakkuk should rest in faith, knowing that this is how God will always operate. But God does answer in a second part, and this is our text of study today, the Five Woes of Habakkuk. So that’s quite a bit of context, and I hope at least some of that made sense. But there’s one other thing that I want to talk about before we read our passage for today, and that’s the emotional setting. I feel like we can easily gloss over what this would have been like for him. We can read it as a Bible story where things are hard, because, you know, in the Bible, things are always hard. But then we don’t really think about how this would feel for us today. At this point, Habakkuk was probably pretty haggard. He was suffering at the hands of the wicked and watching helplessly as the few righteous people who remained in Judah were beaten down and oppressed at his side. In his emotional petition for God to bring his salvation, he learns of the impending conquering and destruction of his city and his people for them to be dragged into a foreign nation even more wicked than the wickedness found in Judah. This is hard, and I don’t want to skip over how complex and difficult the situation for Habakkuk is and all of what it means for Habakkuk to live by faith in trusting God’s plan. So our passage for today is Habakkuk 2, 6, 20. But I will be reading the entirety of chapter two, which begins at the end of Habakkuk’s second complaint. And then verse two starts God’s response, which spans the remaining 19 verses of the chapter. So please open your Bibles to Habakkuk chapter 2 and follow along with me. Habakkuk2. I will take my stand at my watch post and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint. And the Lord answered me. Write the vision, make it plain on tablet, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time. It hastens to the end. It will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright within him. But the righteous shall live by faith. Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations, and collects as his own all peoples. Shall not all these take up their taunt against him with scoffing and riddles for him, and say, woe to him who heaps up what is not his own for how long, and loads himself with pledges? Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them, because you have plundered many nations. All the remnant of the people shall plunder you for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high to be safe from the reach of harm. You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples. You have forfeited your life for the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the woodwork respond. Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity. Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that people labor merely for fire and nations weary themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea? Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink. You pour out your wrath and make them drunk in order to gaze at their nakedness. You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink yourself and show your uncircumcision. The cup of the Lord’s right hand will come around to you and utter shame will come upon your glory. The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them. For the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it? A metal image, a teacher of lies. For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, awake to a silent stone, arise. Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver and there is no breath at all in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silent before him. Please join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this word of Habakkuk the prophet and your response to him. We thank you for the ways that this reveals your justice and helps us to learn more of how we can live by faith, trusting in your plans. Please speak through me. Give me words to speak. Help people to receive the message from you, not in my own wisdom. Jesus name, Amen. And so, as God continues in his response to Habakkuk’s second complaint, he begins to describe five woes, five aspects of injustice that Babylon is doing and that are cause for the impending judgment of Babylon. God sees Habakkuk in his distress and he listens to his complaint. He sees that it is hard to see a wicked nation like Babylon flourish. And these woes are a comfort to Habakkuk that God sees the wickedness of Babylon and will bring about justice. As in the first part of God’s response to Habakkuk in chapter two, Babylon or the Chaldeans aren’t explicitly mentioned. God uses him and he to describe the wicked character in the story. And I think that that is intentional, both so that this judgment on Babylon can be applied to the wicked nations to follow Persia, Greece, Rome, and m

Audio Transcript All right, well, beautiful singing. So I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron and I’m the preaching pastor here and glad you’re with us today. There’s a lot of sickness again in our church. Feels like this winter, maybe you felt it, it’s been feeling better. Nope, we’re sick. Feeling better? Nope, we’re sick. And so this is one of those we’re sick weeks for a lot in our church. And so I’m glad that you’re with us. And also I just want to say I had a lot of fun at the karaoke night. So thank you for those who helped put that together and got a lot of good singers in the church. And so that was just a fun night. So if you have a Bible with you, could open up to the Gospel of Luke. Today’s texture study is going to come from Luke 6, verses 27 through 42. So a little longer passage, Luke 6:27 through 42. And if you don’t have a Bible with you, it’s on page 503 in the blue Bibles that are kind of scattered throughout the fuse. So let me read the text and then I’ll pray and then we’ll work through the so Luke 6, please hear the words of our God. But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also from the one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from the one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners and get back the same amount. But love your enemies and do good, and lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you’ll be sons of the most high. Praise kind to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, you will not be judged. Condemn not, you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give it to be given to you good measure. Pressed down, shaken together, running over, we put into your lap for the measure you use it will be measured back to you. He also told in the parable, can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into the pit? Disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye? Did you not notice the log that’s in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take out that speck that is in your eye when you yourself do not see the log that’s in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take out the log in your own eye. Then you’ll see clearly. Take the speck that is in your brother’s eye. That’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me? God, thank you for bringing us together. Lord, I pray for the glory of Christ and our good and joy in Christ you would bless this time. Please help me to be a good communicator. Please help me to not stumble over my words. Please protect me from speaking that which is false. Help me to only speak that which is true. Lord, please be with the congregation. Please give them ears to hear. The Spirit is saying, pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. This morning I’d like to start a story with you. It’s actually kind of a shameful story about myself. So I mentioned the past. So I became a Christian in college after a friend invited me to a Bible study. We’re at the study I felt the love of Christian people and heard the gospel of Jesus Christ in ways that, by the grace of God, that landed on my heart, in ways I could repent and believe in him before the time I actually did go to church where I did hear the gospel, but I heard it in ways where I remember clearly thinking to myself, I really don’t believe any of these things to be true. Because if I thought these things were true, they should have some major bearing in my life and how I lived. For that being said, even though I knew I didn’t believe, I would still go to church. In fact, fairly consistently, I would go to church. And the reason why I would go to church was kind of twofold, two very related reasons. So first, I went as like, a source of pride for myself is I would go to church when my roommates in college were still sleeping in. So it made me feel a little bit better about myself that I would do the right thing, made me better than them. Second, I would go to church as a meeting just to try to satisfy my guilty conscience. So before becoming a Christian, I really hit every stereotype of being a college kid from small town Wisconsin. I mean, I loved everything related to like party life and drunkenness. However, you know, I love these things in many ways. These were my identity, this lifestyle that I had, it did eat at my conscience where I’d feel guilt and shame for all the things I was doing. So I’d go to church, but honestly, on many Sundays, like still inebriated from the night before, and I’d go just to try to satisfy my conscience. The guilt, the shame I was carrying, although that often just resulted in more guilt, more shame. So I knew that my lifestyle was not adding up as I pretended to the rest of the church I was something I was not. Okay. So with those things in mind, now back to my shameful story. I thought those things weren’t shameful, but one year, trying to get maybe a little bit extra credit to fill my pride, use my conscience, I began to volunteer at a Christian school to be an assistant basketball coach for their seventh grade boys team. Now I do love basketball and I love coaching. So that is part of the reason why I helped out. But more than that, I loved getting praise from the head coach, the players, the families. For being a college kid who’s helping out at a Christian school. It added to my pride, pride that I tried to help ease some of my conscience. Once again, the more praise I got, the more guilty I felt became more clear. It’s like living this double life as I tried to hide my party life and all the other dumb things I did from the team, from the families. Well, my shameful story during one of the games on the bench, I was exposed. My hypocrisy was exposed. So one of the kids on the team did something he was not supposed to do, only for me to yell out from the bench in my frustration. Yell out for everyone to hear the precious name of Jesus Christ. Seeing it as a curse to what just happened on the court, which is something I had no problem using as a curse in every other place. I wasn’t trying to pretend to be something I wasn’t around church people, but I yelled that out of the game. It felt like really everyone in the gym was looking at me. And I do know that the head coach and the kids on the bench all turned and looked at me for screaming that out. I was exposed. Exposed to everyone, including myself, of how much of a hypocrite I was. I wasn’t this nice, godly college student who is pretty Good at going to church. Rather, what came out of my lips, that’s what reflected what was actually in my heart. That was the real me that I was trying to hide from everyone else. Exposed in very humbling ways. I tell you this story this morning with hopes you actually send us up for our passage where I do think hypocrisy is at the core of this passage. Hypocrisy that is painful as it is to be exposed, friends, it does need to be exposed in our hearts. Now, before we get back to our text real quick, where we left off last week in our study of Luke was part of a sermon. We started out with a sermon that Jesus gave while standing on a plane. As mentioned last week is often referred to just as the Sermon on the plain, which is similar but a little different from the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus recorded in Matthew 5. So similar information, but a little bit different. Mentioned this last week because Jesus gave a similar sermon at least two different times. The sermon that Jesus gave is often, I think, arguably the greatest sermon of all time. For this last week, you may remember that as Jesus gave this great sermon started with a series of blessings for those who follow Jesus as his disciples, and then they’re followed by a series of woes for those who reject Jesus. When our text last week, the blessing and woes were actually grounded in the eternal life that is to come, which actually we see is important in our text today as well. As Jesus often thought through this life as it relates to the next life, the eternal life that is about to come. We also mentioned we learned last week the primary audience by which Jesus gave his sermon on the plain was to his disciples, to those who had faith in him. And this is actually important to our text today, we receive instruction from Jesus on what disciples are to look like so that his disciples will not be hypocrites. And for us this morning as it works, this passage, I do want us just to be really humble before this text. Humble in ways we’re actually asking the Lord to search our hearts to expose like any hypocrisy that may be there. Now, none of us necessarily enjoys having hypocrisy exposed. I mean, it’s actually still embarrassing to me how I was exposed at that basketball game. However, as embarrassing and perhaps even painful as it is to be exposed as a hypocrite, it’s the best thing for us for multiple reasons. So living like a hypocritical, almost double life, that’s exhausting, it’s stressful, it’s anxiety building. We have like no freedom to be ourselves if we just pretend to be something that we’re not. But also having our hypocrisy exposed made plain for everyone to see, including ourselves. It should drive us to confess our sins in ways that they’re running to Jesus rather than continuing to try to hide our sins. So through confessing our

Audio Transcript All right, well, beautiful singing. So I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron and I’m the preaching pastor here. And we’re glad you’re with us. I know sickness is kind of spreading around right now, and so I’m glad that you’re well enough to be with us this morning. So if you have a Bible with you, could open up to the Gospel of Luke. Our texture study today is going to be Luke 6, 2020. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there are pew Bibles kind of scattered throughout if you want to find your way there to Luke 6. Also, the word should be on the screen on either end of the stage if you want to follow along there. And if you’re visiting, if you open up your Bible, please do keep them open. So we do a style of preaching here. Actually, we talk about this in a sermon called Expository Preaching. So I’m going to read the passage, we’re going to pray, and then I’m going to walk us right back through the text. And so please do keep your Bibles open in this time. So Luke 6 starting verse 20. So please hear the words of our God. So Luke wrote, and he lifted up his eyes on disciples and said, blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy. For behold, your reward is great in heaven. For so their fathers did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. So that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me? Lord, thank you for your word. And Lord, please help me to be a good communicator of your word today. Please give the congregation ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. I pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, so if you’ve been around here, you know every story starts out, at least for mine. So there we were. So there you were, myself and a man from our home church in Greenway, Wisconsin, and we’re getting together for breakfast. And this is Shortly before my wife, Tia and I were about to move to Louisville, Kentucky for seminary. Now, the man I got breakfast with that morning from our home church is actually a very influential, strong leader in his field. Before he retired, actually, he was the CEO of one of the largest and most profitable companies in the state. Over 7 billion in annual sales. And we got together that morning for breakfast. My friend had a bit of a surprise for me that was very much tied to sobering encouragement that he wanted me to have. Surprise he had for me was an autographed baseball. A baseball that I actually received through some personal connections to a legendary player who signed it for me, a former player, an all time great player named Hank Aaron, who played a good portion of his career for the Milwaukee Braves before that team relocated to Atlanta and then finished up his career for my beloved Milwaukee Brewers. And Hank Aaron not only is one of the greatest players of all time, but he also was my dad’s favorite player when he was growing up. A player that he just adored when Aaron played for both the Braves and the Brewers. In fact, my dad loved Hank Aaron so much that I was born. He named me Aaron after him. And this is something actually my friend knew, and this is one of the reasons why he got this autographed baseball for me, because he knew that it meant a lot to me to have that ball. It’s a pretty sweet gift, pretty thoughtful. But what made that ball even more sweet, even more thoughtful was the sobering encouragement tied to the ball that my friend also wanted to pass on to me. And that sobering encouragement from my friend was reminded me of a different man named Aaron. Not his last name, but his first name, Aaron. Aaron from the Old Testament, who was the brother of Moses. You may remember that now if you remember Moses. So he’s a great leader and prophet, but he also had a stuttering problem. So much so that Moses actually pleaded with the Lord to provide someone who could speak on his behalf, which ended up being his brother Aaron. As Moses spoke on behalf of, or as Aaron spoke on behalf of Moses the prophet who was speaking on behalf of God himself. And for my friend, his sobering encouragement to me through this ball, as I was about to head off to seminary to hopefully get trained to be a preacher, was that every time I look at this baseball, which is currently sitting amidst all my sports treasures in my basement ball, that I see often, by the way, college students, if you’re planning to come to my house next week for pass the pass pastor’s house, I’ll show it to You. But as I look at this baseball with the name Aaron on it, my friend hoped I had the sober encouragement that as I preach like Aaron for Moses, as I preach, I’m speaking on behalf of God from His perfect holy word. Now, obviously, I’m not a prophet like Aaron was as a preacher, but preaching still is speaking God’s word to his people, which, my friend, he wanted this to be a sobering truth for me, sobering as I went to seminary to study there, to study hard, to put forth my best effort in that seminary experience. You also want to be sobering for me one day as I write sermons, as I prep for sermons the way I should, to never cut corners, to give my best effort each sermon I write. You want to be sobering for me as I deliver sermons every time I stand behind the pulpit, that there should be a real, sober sense of what I’m doing, because the weighty responsibility and privilege it is to communicate God’s word. Now, I tell you all this this morning, so sobering this should be for me every time I do this, but maybe even more sobering for me this week, because this week and actually the next couple weeks, my assignment is to preach you from God’s perfect holy word on a passage that is often viewed as the greatest sermon of all time. Meaning my attempt is to give you a sermon from the greatest of all sermons, a sermon that was given by the Lord Jesus Christ, one that he actually gave on more than one occasion. If you’re with us, last week Wes actually mentioned this. I’m going to mention it again today. The sermon we’re about to go through is often referred to as a sermon on the plain, as we learned in our text last week. Verse 17. If you want to take your eyes there, that Jesus gave this sermon, he was standing on a level place. And this sermon on the plain that Luke records is very similar in content to perhaps the most famous of all sermons, that Jesus gave, the Sermon on the Mount, which is recorded in Matthew 5, where Jesus gave that the side of a mountain. Now, I will mention that for some, the Sermon on the Plain here in Luke 6, as well as the Sermon on the mount in Matthew 5. Some believe this actually is like the same event of the exact same sermon. So perhaps there was maybe like a little bit of a plateau on the mountain that gave a level ground for Jesus to preach. And while it is possible that Matthew 5 and Luke 6 record the same event, the exact same sermon, there’s enough little details between the Sermon on the Mount and the sermon on the plain that led many, myself included, to believe these are actually two different events where Jesus preached to two different people, but basically gave the same sermon two different times. You know, as mentioned, to two different people groups, which, by the way, this is actually not a problem. Jesus gave the same sermon at least two times, so. So in this time frame, rabbis are annoying, giving like the same teachings on multiple occasions throughout history, church history, many pastors, myself included, have preached the same passage more than once, where the sermons are very similar. In fact, maybe the most famous sermon, at least in our culture here, that God used to help ignite the Great Awakening first Great Awakening, the sermon titled Sinners in the Hands of Angry God. Maybe you heard that one by Jonathan Edwards. He actually preached that on multiple occasions. So it’s not an issue that Jesus preached the same basic sermon more than once. In fact, knowing that Jesus preached this same basic sermon more than once probably just highlights how important of a message this was from our Lord, which for me further underscores why this is often viewed as the greatest sermon of all time. Okay, now before we get to the text, the sermon that Luke records, just a few things, just a reminder where we’ve been the last few weeks. So. So the ministry of Jesus is now very much in public view. He’s become like the trending topic all over the region, leading more and more to come to him as great crowds were forming around our Lord. And from these crowds included some who Jesus uniquely called to himself to be his disciples, which included some fishermen who we met in chapter five, a despised tax collector who we met in the beginning of chapter six, as well as those listed in our text. Last week, in the middle of chapter six, where none of the disciples seem to be like popular people or influential people, rather they just seem to be like normal, everyday common people like you and me. Yet in his grace, in his wisdom, that is who the Lord Jesus called uniquely to himself, where he’d use these men to become his apostles that in time would like, he would use to completely set the world on his head. Furthermore, as mentioned in previous sermons, but I wanted to mention this again here, as the public ministry of Jesus is in full swing, as the crowds of people are coming to Him. No doubt a large part were coming because of the signs and wonders that Jesus was performing through various healings as well as l

Audio Transcript Yeah, Full house this morning. There we go. So, yeah, it’s good to meet in God’s house and to sing praises to the Lord. So today we are going to continue our sermon series in the book of Luke. And so if you have a Bible, you can go ahead and open up there. And if you don’t have a Bible, there should be some blue Bibles in the chairs that you can go ahead and grab. And so we are in Luke chapter six. And we’re going to be reading verses 12 through 19. And so this passage is focusing on the calling of the 12 disciples and the events that follow right after their calling. And so I’m going to read this passage and then I’ll pray and we’ll get started. So here’s what the word of the Lord has for us this morning. Luke 6:12. In these days he went out to the mountain to pray. And all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them 12 whom he named Apostles Simon, whom he named Peter and Andrew his brother, and James and John and Philip and Bartholomew and. And Matthew and Thomas and James the son of Alphaeus and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. And he came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all. So that’s God’s word for us. Please pray with me. God, thank you that you speak to us through, through your holy word that you have preserved so that we might hear from you. Now I pray God that you would indeed speak, and God you would help me to speak your word and that you would give us hearts and ears to receive what you are saying this morning. It’s in Jesus name we ask these things. Amen. All right. So up until this point in Luke’s eyewitness account of Jesus life, Jesus has done a lot in the region of Galilee and in Judea. And in the very beginning of Jesus ministry, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, followed by a supernatural phenomenon with the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus like a dove and the voice of the Father declaring, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Jesus was then led into the wilderness for 40 days, where he was tested and tempted by Satan and where he overcame the devil through God’s word. Jesus taught in the synagogues throughout the surrounding area of Galilee, teaching that the scriptures were now being fulfilled in him. Jesus declared that he is the Son of man, who has authority to forgive sins. The Bridegroom of God, the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus had casted out demons, proving his authority over spiritual realms of darkness. Jesus had healed many people of a variety of sicknesses and malformities, including fever, disease, leprosy, paralytics, withered hand and and much, much more. Jesus had called forth specific individuals to begin following him that nobody would expect, including outcasts and fishermen and a tax collector. And with all of these things Jesus had done and continued to do, he was doing the will of his Father. But now a shift in Jesus ministry strategy was about to happen. So no longer was Jesus going to continue his mission in solidarity. And although Jesus certainly could have done this, that’s not what God planned to happen. Instead, Jesus would now choose 12among those who had been following him since the baptism of John, and they would become his personal disciples. And so understand, like this is no small thing for the ministry of the Son of God this moment here in our passage, as we know that these 12 disciples would go on after Jesus to establish God’s church for the edification of the saints and for the proclamation of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. So the establishment of God’s kingdom for generations would come, beginning with these 12 disciples. Through these 12, by the power of God, lives would change and the world would change. So how does Jesus make this very big decision? Looking at verse 12 in our text, it says in these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. So before choosing the 12 disciples, we learn that Jesus removes himself from all distractions by going to a mountain in Galilee and he goes there alone to pray to God the Father. And Jesus did this actually early, early on in his ministry that Luke mentions. And he’s doing this at the days when the Pharisees hate for Jesus was only increasing more and more as we learned about from last week’s sermon. And as Luke had mentioned, Jesus had done this in the past. What is unique here in this passage is that this is the only time Luke records Jesus takes all night to pray in isolation. Like the only other time Jesus comes close to doing this is in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion. And so there’s two Reasons why I think God’s Word gives us this information and why Jesus prays all night. The first reason is to show us the humanity of Christ. Jesus is fully God and fully man. And therefore during his time on earth, there are times when Jesus knowledge or power were willingly limited in order for him to be fully human. And so to put it another way, Jesus subjected himself to the Father’s will by choosing not to exercise the full limit of his divinity during his life and ministry on earth. So Jesus never stopped being God, but also he was man. And Jesus dependency upon prayer with his heavenly Father shows us the humility of Christ as he had to depend on his Father at times to reveal to him what the Father’s will was. And since this is such a large decision happening here, Jesus spent the entire night in prayer seeking the Father’s will. The second reason I think Jesus did this is to teach us about the vital importance of prayer. So when faced with a large decision that Jesus knew was part of God’s will for his life, he didn’t say like, I’ll pray about it and then like walk away and like forget to pray about it or just kind of briefly mention it to God in prayer and then just kind of go further about his day. Like actually Jesus, like knowing that he was going to choose the 12among this crowd of disciples, like took, made the disciplinary action to step away from the busyness of ministry to be alone with God and to pray not for five minutes, not for 15 minutes, and not for an hour, but all night long until the text tells us like the sun rose the next day. Like, let that sink in. This is vitally important what Jesus is doing and taking this time to pray. And if the Son of God felt that prayer was this vitally important for his ministry, then how much more vitally important is prayer for God’s people and determining God’s will for our lives? Jesus is the perfect example of what it means to be a Christian and what it means to walk by faith in the living God who hears and answers prayer. And so we as God’s people, we must do the same and carve out devoted time to pray to God individually as a family and corporately if we want to carry out God’s will for our lives. And so if your prayer life is lacking, then let the example of Jesus encourage you to make time for prayer this week. Make some like, attainable goals on how you can devote more time to prayer this week so that God’s will may be done in your life. For God delights in hearing and answering the prayers of his saints. And if the perfect Son of God depended on His Father to lead and direct him while on this earth through the power of prayer, how much more do we need to depend on our heavenly Father through prayer? That being said, moving to verse 13, it says, and when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them 12 whom he named apostles. So the sun rises after Jesus long night of prayer, and Jesus knows who he is going to choose as his 12 student. 12 students. The meeting that Jesus had with his heavenly Father in prayer made it clear who would be chosen and what he would teach them that morning. It’s important to note that the only reason the disciples are made like one of the 12 is, is because Jesus graciously chose them to become his apostles. Like, this isn’t something that they signed up for, but rather something Jesus called them forth to do and chose them to do. And with that line, like John the Baptist understood this as well. John the Baptist said this about his own ministry. A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given to him from heaven. It is by the grace of God and his choosing that these men are made into 12 disciples for the purposes that God set long ago. And the word apostle that is here in our text that Luke points out, it literally means to send. And so this is signifying the mission that was given to these men, to these disciples from Jesus. So in both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark, Jesus choosing of the 12 apostles involves giving them authority to be sent out to preach, to cast out demons, and to heal every disease and affliction, which is exactly what Jesus is about to do in the next few verses. And so the 12 apostles were God’s chosen disciples in whom he gave authority to carry out his great mission. Jesus was instituting a new office of apostleship for the early church, who would serve as his official representatives. And the way he would teach his apostles is by spending time with them. 24, 7. Because of this, these 12 disciples would get to know their teacher and their Lord on a much more personal level from this point on, which is such a privilege for each of these 12 disciples. And then in our text, verses 14 through 16 gives us a list of these apostles names. And so A list of 12 disciples is also given in Matthew, Mark, and Acts. And in each of these lists, Simon Peter is always listed as first. And then Judas Iscariot is always listed as

Audio Transcript All right. Beautiful singing. I love that song. I love the lyrics and that they sing. And I hope that’s why you’re here this morning, that your soul is satisfied in just Jesus and him alone. And if it’s not, we hope that by the end of the service, you are. So one of the things that we talk about pretty often here is like the most important instrument that we have as a congregation for our music is the singing of you. And so as we sing, I do want to keep encouraging you to sing. Sing out. This is the most important thing, our singing time is us singing as a congregation. So beautiful singing once again. So I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron. I’m the preaching pastor here. And we’re glad that you’re with us on this very cold Sunday morning. So if you have a Bible with you, if you open up to the Gospel of Luke, continue in our study of Luke. Today, our text to study is going to be Luke 6:1, 11. If you don’t have a Bible with you, the pew Bibles are scattered throughout and they’re on page 502. And then if you’re visiting with us. So we do a style of preaching here called expository preaching. And so I’m going to read a passage, I’m going to pray, ask for the Lord’s blessing, and then we’re going to actually walk right back through the text. And so as you open your Bible, please do keep them open. So the most important thing I might say today is just me reading the Word and continue to communicate the Word to you. That’s the most important thing. So we want to hear God speak this morning. So Luke 6:1 through 11 on page 502, if you’re using one of the pew Bibles, So please to hear the words of our God. So Luke wrote, on a Sabbath, while he was going through the grain fields, disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath? Jesus answered them, have you not read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of presents. Was it not lawful for any but the priest to eat? And he also and also gave it to those with him. And he said to them, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. On another Sabbath in the synagogue was teaching. And a man who was there, whose right hand was withered, the scribes and Pharisees watched him to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath so they might find a reason to accuse him. He knew their thoughts. Said to the man with a withered hand, come stand here. He rose and stood there. Jesus said to them, I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or. Or to do harm, to save a life or to destroy it? After looking around at them, he said to him, stretch out your hand. And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. So that’s God’s word for us this morning. Let’s pray. God, it’s good to be here. For every Sunday that we can gather together as your people here at Red Village. It is a sweet gift from you and Lord, we pray that you would bless the preaching of your word for the glory of Christ and for our good God. Please help me to communicate the word correctly, to rightly divide the word of truth. Please be with the congregation. Please give them ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. And Lord, in this time, please just use it to bring glory to Christ. In his name we pray. Amen. So I think every so often it’s really important for us to think through the why or the purpose behind all that we do. Because what can happen over time, the why, the purpose of what we do can kind of get lost in ways that we just start doing things for the sake of doing things, where things that we’re doing perhaps end up taking a life on their own in ways that end up not being healthy, that can lead to us maybe become apathetic or arrogant. So as a church, it’s important to us to understand the why, the purpose, which I’m going to talk about more at the end of this time. But I say this to you up front just to kind of help set us up for our text of study today, which is a text where the people in the text clearly lost track of the why, the purpose, one of the more important aspects of their faith as they lost track of the why, the purpose of the Sabbath in ways that rather than the Sabbath existing for them and their arrogance, they started to like almost try to exist for the Sabbath, as in their arrogance, they tried to use the Sabbath as a means of their own self righteous gain before God, which was not the purpose of the Sabbath, why God created the Sabbath. So I’ll talk about this more in just a bit as well, but before we do, just to take a little bit of time, just to kind of help think through just some of the context before we dive into the passage. First, let me just the context of the passage I just went through. So I mentioned our text last week. The public ministry of Jesus is now in full swing, which is the ministry that kicked off in the region of Galilee where this public ministry of the Lord Jesus included like healing the sick, the lame, the blind, casting out demons. But the primary ministry that Jesus had was actually his preaching and teaching ministry, which often would take place in various synagogues, including one in our text today. And as the public ministry of Jesus was now on full swing, his popularity was spreading like wicked wildfire throughout the region as more and more began to wonder if indeed he Jesus was the long awaited, long anticipated Christ who was to come. And this led to more and more coming around Jesus, forming bigger and bigger crowds around him. However, even though his popularity was spreading questions, concerns about his ministry were also starting to like increase, particularly among the Pharisees and the scribes who were the religious leaders of the day. And these concerns that the Pharisees and scribes had to Jesus were on multiple fronts. Maybe share a few with you. One, the Pharisees scribes really did not like who Jesus was ministering to, which in the Gospel accounts included those with like some very deep negative social stigma tied to them. A few weeks back, if you were here, a text included Jesus healing a leper, which was like a painful, gross skin disease. He also heard a paralytic where the Pharisees seemed to imply that this paralytic suffered that because of some of his own sin. Last week may remember Jesus came to a tax collector named Levi. And as Jesus came to Levi was then to like shame him, but to actually call Levi to follow him, which Levi did, leaving everything to follow Jesus. And then after that, may you remember how Levi threw a great party for other tax collectors and other social outcasts with Jesus being the guest of honor at this party. If you remember, it was last week. So the tax collectors, they’re arguably like the most hated people in all of Israel because they were viewed as traitors. So for the Pharisees, like they hated these people, they hated who Jesus was ministering to with like all these deep social stigma tied to them because in their minds those type of people were to be like, avoided and shamed. Certainly not cared for, loved on, certainly not shown any type of mercy. Second, the Pharisees had concerns about Jesus because they rightly understood that as Jesus ministered, Jesus did so in ways that he was claiming divine authority that he is God in the flesh, which Jesus can do. Because we see all throughout the New Testament, including Luke, that yes, indeed, Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, that Jesus is the great God man, fully God, fully man, which we actually see again in our text today. We see this both in his divine actions of healing a man, also in his divine words in our text today, as he refers himself as the Son of man, who is the Lord over the Sabbath. However, for the Pharisees, even though throughout the Old Testament that they claim to love, even though the Old Testament pointed to a God man who had come to save his people, even though from his birth Jesus fulfilled these promises and prophecies of the Old Testament that he was the God man who was to come, the Pharisees fully rejected Jesus. They fully rejected him being the fulfillment. They rejected that indeed he was the Christ Messiah. And because they rejected who Jesus is and what he came to do, they just hated him. Third, the Pharisees also had concerns about Jesus, didn’t improve his ministry. They hated him in ways because of how Jesus would confront their own sin, sinful hearts. So over and over again, including our text today, the Pharisees would try to trap Jesus, only for Jesus to turn things back on them. However, as Jesus confronted their hearts, rather than humbling themselves before him, rather than confessing their sin in their pride, they became more and more violent towards Jesus in the rejection of him. They hated how Jesus confronted them in their sin, because they hated that not only did they reject him, they would work hard to try to convince others to reject him and as well. Okay, so that’s a little bit of our context, our passage. So Jesus ministry is growing, crowds around him is growing. But the hatred from the religious leaders also was growing as they’re seeking, like, every opportunity they could to like discredit the Lord Jesus and his ministry. So that’s kind of his text. Second, let me also just give you some context or some handles on the Sabbath, which is going to be at the center of our passage today. So the word Sabbath basically means, like to cease or to rest. And this ceasing, this rest, the Sabbath is something we first see on the seventh day of creation in the book of Genesis. Okay? So if you read through the creation account, so the preceding six days, so God is at work where he not only creates the heavens, the earth, but then he fills the heavens and the earth, including filling with mankind who is the pinnacle of his crea

Audio Transcript Today. And we have some special guests who actually want to point out. So Mike and Angie Lopp are over here. So Mike was a pastor for a number of years, almost 30 years at Trinity Baptist Church in Reedsburg. And our entire time here, my family and I, entire time here, 16 years now. They’ve been really good friends to us and to Red Village Church, especially in the beginning when we were first getting started, Mike was just a real mentor and friend to me. So much so that him and I decided to wear very similar sports coats today. So if you’re want to thank him for his service to our church and his friendship to me, just look at my sports coat. Look for someone else wearing a sports coat like it and you’ll find Mike. Okay, so that being said, if you have a Bible with you, open up to the Gospel of Luke. We’re going to continue in our study today. So our text of study is Luke 5, 2739. If you don’t have a Bible, there are pew Bibles scattered throughout. It’s on page 502. 2. And if you’re visiting with us, so we do a style of preaching called expository preaching. And so what I’m going to do, I’m going to read the passage for us, I’m going to pray, ask for God’s blessing on our time, and then we’re going to actually walk right back through the passage. So if you open up your Bible, please keep them open throughout the entire service. The desire that we have is just for God’s word to speak to us this morning. So Luke 5, 2739. So. So if you want to follow along with me, I’ll be reading out of the English Standard version of the esv. So please hear the words of our God. After this, he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, follow me. And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house. And there was a large company of tax collectors and others climbing at the table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered them, those who are well have no need of physician, but those who are sick, I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance. And they said to him, the disciples of John fast often and offer prayers. And so the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. Jesus said to them, can you make a wedding Guest fast while the bridegroom is with them. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them. And in those days they will fast. He also told them a parable. No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new and the piece from the new will not match the old. No one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it’ll be spilled and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put forth, put into new, into fresh wine skins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new. For he says the old is good. So that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me? God, thank you for bringing us here together this morning. And Lord, as much as we love to sing and fellowship, the reason why we’re here this morning is because we want to hear from you in your word. So Lord, we pray that you would speak, oh Lord, that you would speak through the folly of my preaching. God, please help me to be a good communicator. Help me to speak truth, clarity and conviction. God, please be with the congregation. Please give them ears to hear to hear what the Spirit is saying to our church. Pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. So recently I just finished up reading through the New Testament book of first Corinthians, where at the end of chapter two there’s a passage that basically splits mankind into two camps, which is really the reality we see throughout Scripture. So in first Corinthians labels these two camps as one being the natural man, which is one who cannot, will not understand the things of God. In fact, to the natural man, the things of God come across as but like foolishness, particularly when it comes to the cross of Christ Jesus dying in the place of sinners seems foolish, unnecessary. Then the other camp is what first Corinthians refers to as like the spiritual person who is a person who has the spirit of God living inside them, which comes through the new birth, where through the power of the spirit living inside, one can actually have the mind of Christ, which makes it possible to understand deep spiritual truths, to be able to discern that which is true. So the things of God make sense to the spiritual man, where the spiritual man is able to see the wisdom of God and how he’s at work in the world. Particularly when it comes to the cross of Christ or the cross Jesus dying for sinners, only to rise again from the dead on the third day for the spiritual man that is being understand as the wisdom of God for salvation for all who would believe. Now, I share that with you this morning because we come to a passage that is not only pointing to the new birth, which we’ll get to at the end, which comes to the new covenant that Jesus is ushering in for all who would believe, including in our text someone who had been very unlikely, seemed very unlikely to receive God’s love and mercy leading to salvation. But also we come to a text where we see the folly of natural man found in the religious leaders of the day who just could not understand what Jesus was doing, in fact stood in opposition towards the Lord Jesus Christ and his work in the world. Okay, now before we get into text, just a reminder where we left off last week, which is verses 12 through 26 of chapter 5. And that details two stories of men that Jesus healed who had some real negative social stigma tied to them. So you may remember if you hear last week, the first was a man who had leprosy, which is a very painful skin disease that would have basically required the man to isolate himself from the rest of society. The second was a man who was paralyzed, which in the text seemingly is viewed by society as him getting something he deserved. Where in these two passages, despite the social stigma that these two men would have carried, Jesus came to them and he cared for them and he loved on these two men in ways that have been so unexpected for the rest of society. In fact, Jesus care and love that he showed these two men, particularly for the religious leaders, would have been like scandalous towards them for Jesus to love them in such a way, where we ended our text last week, through the care, through the love that Jesus had for these two men, even though it was hard for society, I’m sure to understand how we can care and love for them in such ways. The text ended with the crowd leaving the scene in awe of him by bringing glory to God for the extraordinary things that they saw take place. Well, not everyone in the crowd, the aforementioned religious leaders today, the Pharisees, the scribes, seemingly leftist, seemed like more and more frustrated and upset at the Lord Jesus Christ, which is something we’re going to see in our text today. In fact, this is something that we continue to see throughout the Gospel of Luke, where the religious leaders become more and more upset at Jesus because it becomes harder and harder for them to understand. They just could not get it. They could not understand the mission that the Lord Jesus was on. They could not understand how Jesus would love and care for Those in their minds should have been shamed and judged, which in large part they don’t understand because their pride would not let them, or they proved to be natural men, even though they were religious leaders. By the way, it’s not just the religious leaders who had a hard time understanding Jesus. As we continue in our study of Luke, we actually see even more and more from the crowd turning on Jesus, where in time they actually call for Jesus to be crucified. Okay, so that’s intro. If you look back, Starting in verse 27 of our text, as much as we’re just going to kind of walk through this verse by verse. So verse 27 reads this, it says after this. So after this is referring to the healing of the paralytic so he could walk as well as Jesus forgiving the paralytic of his sins, which was much to the anger and, and dismay of religious leaders, particularly that Jesus forgave this man of his sins. And what made this angry, if you may remember, angry, which we may remember from last week. The leaders rightly understood that only God can forgive sins. However, what they did not understand is that Jesus actually is God in the flesh. So after this in the text, Jesus went out and he saw a tax collector named Levi, who also is called Matthew, who is the same Matthew who wrote the gospel account that we call Matthew. In fact, the story of Levi or Matthew is actually one he recorded himself in Matthew chapter nine. And my hunch is that Matthew is the one who shared this story with Luke. So as Luke is writing his gospel, as you may remember, in the start of going through his studies, based on eyewitness accounts, my hunch is that Matthew was one of the eyewitnesses who Luke interviewed. So in the text, as Jesus saw Levi, he saw Levi while he was at work sitting at the tax booth. Now, just a few things here. So these tax booths, they were kind of scattered throughout the region to collect taxes for the Roman government who ruled over the area. And this was much to the dismay, much to the frustration of the Jewish people. Second, because of this dismay, this frustration the Jewish people had, they despised tax collectors, particularly those who were Jewish tax collectors, which Levi was. So to the rest of the Jews, Levi, other Jewish tax collectors, they would have felt like traitors to them. So different commentaries I read this week, tax collectors are so despised, so hated. In later Jewish writings, tax collectors are lumped togethe

Audio Transcript All right. Well, beautiful singing if I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron, and I’m the preaching pastor here, and I’m glad you’re with us today. So if you have a Bible with you, if you open up to the Gospel of Luke today, our text for study is going to be Luke 5, verses 12 through 26. And if you don’t have a Bible with you, there are Bibles scattered throughout the pews, and it’s on page 502. So Luke 5:12, 26, 6. So please follow along as I read. After I finish reading our text, I’ll pray, and then we’re going to get to work. So Starting in verse 12, this is what Scripture says. While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will be clean. And immediately leprosy left him. And he charged him to tell no one. But go and show yourself to the priests and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded for a proof of them. But now even more. The report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and be healed of their infirmities. But he withdrew to desolate places and prayers. On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord is with him to heal. Some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus. We’re finding no way to bring him in because the crowd went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And we saw their faith. He said, man, your sins are forgiven you. The scribes and Pharisees began to question, saying, who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sin but God alone? When Jesus received their thoughts, he answered them, why do you question your hearts? Which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven you? Or to say, rise and walk? You may know that the Son of man’s authority on earth forgives sins. He said to the man who is paralyzed, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. Immediately he rose up before them, picked up what he had lying, what he was lying on, and went home glorifying God. And amazement seized them all. And they glorified God, were Filled with awe, saying, we have seen extraordinary things today. So that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me? Lord, I pray that you would bless this time. Lord, please help me to be a good communicator. Help me to speak well and to speak truth. Please prevent me from error. I pray for the power of your spirit. You also would help the congregation to be good listeners. They would hear what the Spirit is saying through the Word. And Lord, I pray that in this time that you would grow our faith and that you would set our eyes on Jesus. Pray us on his name. Amen. Okay, so this morning I want to start by being maybe a little bit vulnerable. Vulnerable with you from growing up when I was a kid and a lot of advantages not all kids have. So parents love me, we’re together. We had a lot of family in the area, always healthy. I had friends, among many other advantages that not everyone grows up with. However, one of the things that my family I did not have, even though my parents were hardworking people, was money. Where times were always tight. And because things are always tight, everyone knew, myself included, that my family did not have money, that we were poor. So my grandma would tell stories that when she was a kid, where she grew up poor, but because everyone else around her was poor, like, she didn’t know it. Well, I knew we were poor, and I knew that everyone else knew that we were poor. I tried to find ways just to kind of hide that reality. So let me just show you one way to kind of help set the stage for today. So because we were poor, my family qualified for various assistance, one of which being free school lunch. Now, at my school, to get lunch required lunch tickets that required to be purchased at the school office. So on Monday mornings, everyone would crawl the office, money in hand, to buy lunch tickets for that week. However, because my lunch tickets were free, what I had to do was just go to office workers, ask them for an envelope which had my tickets in it. And because I didn’t want to see everyone, to see that those tickets were handed me, because then they would understand that my family was getting free lunch. So what I would do all Monday morning, I would just try ways like to kind of like pace the hall, to like, walk by the office with the hope that I could slip in, get the envelope with my free lunch tickets during a time when no one other student, no other students were there. And this is something I actually did for years. It wasn’t just with free lunch tickets, but so many other realities would come our way that not only underscore that we were poor, but. But these realities that cause like different anxieties. Well, of my heart, right. Just try to like cover up that reality and the stigma that I attached to being poor. Where so much of my time and my identity was wrapped up in this stigma like it was consuming. Where seemingly everything in my life revolved around this stigma that I wanted to be freed from. Now I tell you this story this morning with the hopes of just try to self Our passage of scripture today was a passage I just read for you that tells stories of two different men who came to the Lord Jesus Christ looking for healing. As we worked through these two stories this morning, my assumption is that you’re familiar with these stories or at least familiar with stories of Jesus healing people. In fact, a few weeks back the sermon involved Jesus healing many in the town from Capernaum, including the healing of a mother in law of Simon Peter who we learned last week became one of Jesus first disciples. And because of the familiarity of these stories of Jesus giving healing, the temptation is to kind of like gloss over these stories without taking maybe much time or thought to like try to place ourselves in the story, to consider all the things that are happening in the story, which is something I want to do today specifically to try to place yourself in the story by considering the various ways that Jesus shows care and love to the two men in the story, including in ways maybe we would not consider just the social stigma that these two men surely felt as they came to the Lord Jesus for healing these two men in our story would have carried awful social stigma that I’m sure was like consuming to them that no doubt was like their identity that they desperately wanted to be freed from. We’re talking more about through the passage, but before we get there, just a quick reminder where we left off last week. It was a very helpful sermon from Ben at the start of Luke 5 where Jesus now fully into his earthly ministry and he’s ministering in the region around the Sea of Galilee, which was not like the most prestigious or well thought of area of Israel. This is kind of like a backwater place in many ways. Yet as Jesus was ministering in this area which primarily came through his preaching and teaching ministry, although he also was healing many in the area as well as casting out demons as he was ministering, his fame is now spreading all over the region as people from all over began to wonder if perhaps Jesus was indeed the long awaited Promised Messiah, the Christ as mentioned in our text last week as Jesus called his first disciples to come follow him, including Simon Peter. These were like common fishermen. So not a prestigious vocation, not a well paying or well educated job. Yet in his grace and wisdom, that’s who Jesus chose as his first disciples as he’s about to take common fishermen to make them fishers of men through the proclamation that indeed Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. So that’s where we left off last week. Jesus calling common fishermen to be his disciples who upon hearing the calling of Jesus on their life, left everything and followed him. As mentioned this morning, Jesus continues to minister in the area. And we see Jesus minister to two men with deep social stigma attached to them. Men who came to Jesus in desperation, looking to be freed by him, looking for his care, for his love. So it brings us back to the text. You want to look back with me in verse 12, if you have your Bible open, please do keep them open. We’re going to walk right back to the text. So verse 12 says while he Jesus was one of the many cities around the Sea of Galilee. There came to him a man who was full of leprosy. Full of it. Now if you’re not familiar with leprosy in scriptures, this seems to be almost like a catch all term used to label various like skin diseases. Many of them are like painful and gross. Some of them are like kind of highly contagious skin diseases. And because the contagious reality that accompanies some of these diseases in the Old Testament there was like rules and requirements given to lepers which you can read about in the book of Leviticus, including which is required in chapter 13, verse 45 says this, that a leprous person with disease like who has this disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair on their head hang loose and they shall cover his lip and cry out unclean. Unclean meaning a person who had leprosy was not to like to try to cover up that reality in ways like maybe I try to cover up my family being poor. Rather to help spread or prevent the spread of the disease, the law required lepers by appearance. That is to make it very clear that indeed they actually were a leper. In verse 46, chapter 13, Verticus says this. He should remain unclean. As long as he has disease, he is unclean and he shall live alone. His dwelling should be outside the camp. And to further stop the spread, the leper had

Audio Transcript A lot of people are out traveling, so just grateful for everybody that can be here and make it so. Yeah, I thought it would be helpful this morning for us to actually just look at a short couple verses in the book of Isaiah. So if you have your Bible, go ahead and grab your Bible and open up to Isaiah, chapter nine. So my hope is that I’ll actually preach a shorter sermon this morning, but give everyone a lot more time to really meditate on these four amazing names that Isaiah gives us concerning Christ. So as you open up there, I’m going to go ahead and read chapter nine, verses six through seven, and then I’ll pray and just ask that God would bless this time and we’ll jump into it. So Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7, here’s what the word of the Lord has for us this morning says, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of peace, and of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. And on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness, from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Please pray with me. God, thank you. Just for this season where we get to really reflect on the coming of Christ and just worship you and Christmas and even in transitioning to the new year. God help us to continue to worship Christ. Pray that you would bless this time as we study your word and God that you would speak and give us ears to hear. It’s in Jesus name we all pray. Amen. All right, so when I was a junior in high school, about the age of 17, I had just received my driver’s license and had bought my first truck. It was a red 1994 manual Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. It had a camper shell that I could sleep in at any time, and then it had six gears to get me wherever I needed to go. So that winter, right after I just got my license, only weeks after, I decided that I wanted to drive out in the middle of the Waihee Prairie desert in Idaho to go coyote hunting. And then I also decided that I could even sleep in the back of the camper shell of my truck to make it even better. The only thing I had to do was convince my mom that this was a good idea. So when I asked her, she immediately told me that there was a huge snowstorm coming that weekend and Counseled me to not go. She told me the roads would be too slick and it would be too cold and too dangerous to go out driving in the middle of the waihe prairie. But I was very persistent. And after lots of persuading, I finally convinced my mom to. To let me go as long as my cousin nick, who was a freshman, would join me. So I thought to myself, what does my mom know about the snow and the cold? I will be just fine. And so, before my mom could change her mind, I quickly loaded up everything I would need into my truck. I got Nick, brought him into my truck, and said, we are going to reynolds creek to hunt coyotes in the snow. And so out we went. And I found a place at the end of a dirt road, Pretty much in the middle of nowhere to park my truck. And then me and Nick slept in the camper shell of my truck. That night, the temperature was at least in the single digits, if not colder. And that night, it snowed close to about 8 inches to a foot. So early the next morning, we wake up ready to go out coyote hunting. And I start the truck, which barely turned over. And then we begin to drive further into the snowy rolling hills of the oahes. And after multiple attempts of getting out and trying to call for coyotes that might be wandering out in this desert, Nothing came. And we didn’t see any coyotes. And it was really, really cold. So me and Nick decided, let’s go ahead and loop back home after completely failing. So we’re driving down these hills and making a loop back down to the main highway to get us back home. And I notice that my truck tires were starting to slip in areas on the road. So I had the truck in four wheel drive. I knew that my truck could handle this, I’d be just fine. But the roads had become like ice overnight. And so as we’re going downhill, on one side of the road, the left side of the road, there is a 20 foot ditch that is off to the side. On the other side, there’s just this giant hill, which you just end up hitting the hill. And so as my truck begins to slip a little bit, like, me and Nick get really quiet as we realize this may not be good. And so as we continue to drive down this winding road, Going very slow, creeping very slow, Being very incautious, all of a sudden, the truck lost control and began to slide. So it just happens in slow motion. Me and Nick are just completely frozen in fear. And the truck begins to actually spin 180 degrees in the middle of this dirt snowy road and as it’s doing so it is shifting itself right towards the 20 foot ditch. And so as this is happening both me and Nick begin to yell and begin to panic and at one point Nick opens up the passenger door like ready to jump ship and leave me as the truck is going to go into this ditch, which did not make me feel good at all. So doing the only thing I could possibly think of, I throw the truck into first gear and hit the gas as much as I could as the wheels begin to spin on the backside and begin to slowly push us inches away from the 20 foot ditch in which by God’s grace, it worked and we barely missed the ditch. And so the truck continued to spin an entire 360 degrees to where it’s now facing back downhill down the road and then comes to a stop. I cannot express how terrified I felt in this moment. And almost immediately my mom’s words came to my head as I realized she was right. So me and Nick, after getting a hold of ourselves and adrenaline wearing down, started to drive back home and thankfully we did not slide or get ourselves into any other trouble as we drove back home. And you can bet that I did not tell my mom a single word of what had happened as we drove back home. Now the reason I share this story with you is because this was a time when I received some really great counsel, but I ignored it. And so the first four names that we are given here in the book of Isaiah is wonderful counselor. So Christ, he is our wonderful counselor of God who is brought to mankind. Therefore we should certainly heed his counsel and apply it. This is something I’ll talk about more in the next few minutes, but before I do, I want to briefly remind you of the context of this passage in the book of Isaiah. So Isaiah was written by the prophet Isaiah almost 700 years ago before the coming of Christ. Sorry, 700 years before the coming of Christ. Isaiah was a prophet during the rule of four different kings, and the last one being Hezekiah. He lived in the shadow of Assyria’s oppression upon Israel, including the Assyrians victory over the northern tribes of Israel, which resulted in their capture and their temporary exile to Assyria, which was a dark time for Israel. And so during this time Israel and Judah were in a very dark spiritual state and the hand of God’s judgment was heavily upon them. God’s people had rejected the Lord and refused to listen to Isaiah’s pronouncements and judgments that would come through the Assyrians and later through the Babylonians. But in the midst of all this judgment that Isaiah prophesies, he also prophesies about future restoration and comfort for God’s people. And Isaiah also gives some of the richest Messianic prophecies found in all of Scripture, including the verses that we are looking at today. And so you’ll see at the end of chapter 8, Isaiah further pronounces judgment upon Israel, saying, and they will look to the earth, but behold distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they, being Israel, will be thrust into thick darkness. So chapter eight is ending very bleak. But verse one of chapter nine then says, but there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. Rather, Isaiah says, in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea in the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. So essentially, the beginning of chapter nine serves as a transition from gloom and anguish that chapter eight talks about to now the glory of restoration, starting with the northern tribes of Israel that dwell in Galilee and the border and border, the Gentile nations of the north. So verses one through five of chapter nine, they are building up what is about to be revealed in verses 6 and 7 about the child who is to be born. So I’m just going to give us a quick overview of verses 1 through 5 and what they’re saying, and you can just kind of follow along as I give this summary in verses 1 through 5. So these verses tell us that a light is going to shine on God’s people that will bring them out of darkness. God will increase the joy of his people, and he will multiply the nations of Israel as He promised to Abraham, the joy his people will experience. It will be like the joy one has at harvest time, or the joy that comes when dividing the spoils of a great enemy. God will break the yoke of Israel’s enemies that was placed upon them, which is namely the Assyrian yoke. And just as God brought a grand victory for God’s people during the days of Gideon against the Midianites, which is what the reference is alluding to, in the same way, God will do this again for his people against the Assyrians, God will use the death of Israel’s enemies as fuel for the fire, meaning God will use what was meant to harm Israel to be used for the good of his people. And he will bring an end to to the battle by burning what is left. So all of this, all this context, verses 1 through 5, all this hangs on what Isaiah tells us in verse six, which says, for to us a child is born to Us, a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. Now, if we were to just stop there, Jewish readers would certainly see that Hezek

Audio Transcript If you open up to the Gospel of Luke. So today our texture study is going to be from Luke 4, 31, 44. And if you’re visiting with us. So we are in the middle of going through just a study, a series through the Gospel of Luke. And so you happen to be here today as we get to Luke chapter four. So 4:31 through 44. And if you open your Bibles, please do keep them open. So we do a style of preaching called expository preaching. So I’m just going to read through the text, we’re going to pray, and then we’re going to walk right back through that passage. So the desire for our time today is just to really keep our nose in God’s word. So let me read the text and then as mentioned, I’ll pray and then we’ll get to work. So starting at 31 Luke 4. And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and he was teaching them on the Sabbath. And they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. In the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon who cried out with a loud voice, ha. What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, be silent and come out of him. When the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they all were amazed and said to one another, what is this word for? With authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. Reports about him went to every place in the surrounding region. And he rose, left the synagogue and entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother in law was ill with a high fever, and he appealed to him on her behalf. And he stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. And immediately she rose and began to serve them. Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various disease brought them to him. And he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And the demons also came out of many, crying, you are the Son of God. He rebuked them and not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ. And when it was day he departed and went to a desolate place, and people sought him and came to him, and would have kept coming or kept him from leaving them. But he said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose. He was preaching the synagogues of Judea. So that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me? Lord, thank you for your word. And Lord, please help me to be a good communicator this morning. Help me to rightly divide the word of truth. Lord, please be with the congregation. Please give them ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. And Lord, please use this time just to bring glory to Christ. His name. We pray. Amen. So this morning we actually got a lot to cover, so we’re going to kind of jump in right away. And as we jump in right away this morning, I hope the sermon for us is going to be a sermon that kind of looks at the forest of the text rather than like the individual trees. So as you read sacred Scripture, I do think it’s good for us to look both at forest and the trees. The forest being like, the big picture, the primary teaching of the passage, and then the trees being more like some of the smaller details, details that do matter, that are important, that often are, like, pretty interesting for us to think through. And it’s usually individual trees. This we’re actually where Christians might have, like, different thoughts, different opinions, realizing why there’s different churches, like, different denominations. These are different thoughts on, like, individual trees within Scripture. So I mentioned, I do think the individual trees are important for us to look at, but more important only after we see and understand the forest, is if we miss the forest for the trees. I think it’s actually some of the ways we come up not only with, like, wrong doctrine, wrong theology, but also just, like, wrong application where we start to do things. Maybe it’s not true to Scripture as a whole. So to say it again, the hope for today is for us to see the forest of this passage, which revolves around the authority and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that’s really the big and primary teaching of this passage. Passage that’s important for us to see, particularly when it comes to the trees of our text. Trees that are going to be fairly interesting. Trees. Trees, I’m going to point out, but in ways to not keep our focus on the trees, but to try to keep them our focus on the forest. Okay, now, before we work through the passage, just a quick reminder where we left off in our study of Luke. There’s a very helpful sermon that Will gave to us a couple weeks back. It came from a heavier text of Scripture found in the middle of Luke 4. So if you’re with us in Sermon series of Luke. So you may remember that after being baptized by John in the Jordan river, where Jesus identified with the very people he came to save. So in our text, last time, Jesus returned back home to Nazareth, which culturally and biblically is actually a pretty insignificant place, almost like a backwater like village. And this is where Jesus spent most of his first 30 years of his life. We’re in these 30 years of his life, it appears that Jesus lived actually the most normal of lives, where I think we can rightly say that Jesus like toiled in obscurity, most likely just like working for his dad in the family business of being a carpenter, where I’m sure like the monotony that many of us feel with our jobs, like Jesus would experience as well. So in the incarnation or the God’s eternal son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as he lived out his first 30 years living among us, much of it was just very normal, very ordinary having a text last time. As Jesus returned home, the normal ordinary had changed for him. Because soon after Jesus entered into his public ministry at the age of 30, he quickly had growing popularity and fame because, because of the teachings and some of the miracles he was performing. And so in our language, Jesus entered into the public ministry basically was like, like trending like all over the region, where he’s quickly becoming like the topic of conversation as like his lore as well as being talked about more and more about. And because the popularity and fame that Jesus receiving for this small, pretty insignificant hometown of Nazareth, there’s like real excitement as they know that Jesus is returning home. I’m sure part of the excitement just revolved around some of the surprise that the town had. I mean, really of all people, Jesus, the son of Joseph, the humble carpenter, you know, this very one we’ve known his entire life, he of all people, now he’s the one who is the talk of the region. I’m also sure part of the excitement of Jesus returning had to do with maybe some small town like hometown pride that they were able to produce now this popular figure from their hometown every day. If you travel to a small town, which is actually where I’m from, it’s a very small town. And if that hometown has someone famous, you travel in, you see a sign such and such town, but it’s home of such and such famous individual. If they have someone who became someone popular, you know, it becomes a source of like hometown pride. And that’s like Jesus as he gets back to Nazareth. That’s the sense we get in the text where he’s like welcome back with like this as a hometown hero. You may remember as you started out the source of hometown pride in our text last time, things quickly changed, so our text became like a heavy text. So as Jesus came back, as Nazareth gave Jesus his hometown heroes welcome, they did so by giving Jesus the honor of being able to teach at the synagogue, assuming that Jesus would be teaching some type of like warm fuzzy teaching to only enhance their hometown pride. But if you remember, as Jesus began to teach, he did so by giving an exposition from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, who among many things Isaiah taught about. But the primary thing was he taught about the Messiah that was to come. Let’s take the real four forest of Isaiah’s teachings. And as Jesus taught from Isaiah taught about the Messiah, he did so in ways he let the synagogue in Nazareth know that the words of Isaiah were now fulfilled in him. Meaning he’s proclaiming to his hometown that he was the long awaited, long anticipated, the promised Messiah, which for the folks of Nazareth, that would have brought even more excitement to them. Wait, so you’re telling us you’re the Messiah? Can you imagine how exciting that would have been for them? Like their hometown would produce the long waited, long anticipated Messiah, make you imagine what they were thinking about their welcome sign, you know, kind of nonchalantly, you know, welcome to Nazareth, no big deal. But yeah, this is where the Messiah is from. So Jesus gave his exposition. The synagogue at first was pumped clear approval where everyone started to speak well of him, marveling at his gracious words. Although as you may remember, as they marveled at him, they did so with confusion because of the obscurity that Jesus had for much of his life. Okay, we’re really excited that Jesus became a popular figure. We’re even more excited about the potential of being actually the Messiah. But low key. This is kind of surprising. Like we’ve known him whole life. We know his mom, we know his dad, we know his siblings, we know just simple carpenters. But even though they’re confused, they’re at least willing to entertain that maybe Jesus actually was Messiah. Because after all, you could hear him teach in incredible ways. Well, after initial approval of Jesus his teachings, things changed quickly and things got really heavy because on that day, Jesus wasn’t there to like rally up some hometown pride. Rather, Jesus was there. Jesus is always there to

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