#27 Lu. 4:22-30 JESUS REJECTED AT NAZARETH

Introduction:

When the ministry of Jesus began He traveled from village to village and

from city to city in Galilee. The city of Capernaum was His headquarters

city. This is the city where most of His miracles were done and where the

greatest of His miracles were done. He did not return to His hometown of

Nazareth for about a year and until His fame as a miracle worker and teacher

were well established.

When He did finally return to Nazareth, as in other places, He was asked

to read and to speak in their synagogue. He did. He read from the Book of

Isaiah about the promised Messiah or promised Christ. The passage that He

read portrayed the Messiah as a prophet of God and as a Physician sent from

God. As a prophet of God, it was said that the Spirit of God was upon Him,

that He would preach the gospel to the poor, that He preach deliverance to

the captives, and preach the acceptable year (or time) of the Lord. As a

Physician, it was said that He would heal the broken hearted, restore sight

to the blind, and set at liberty them that are bruised.

After reading the passage Jesus then announced to the people that He is

the One that the prophecy was talking about. He said that He is the

Messiah, the Christ, that God had promised.

I. The witness the people bore of Jesus

V. 22, "And all bare him witness..." The first reaction of the people

was that they all acknowledged that the words of the prophecy fit with the

life of Jesus. What the prophecy said that the Messiah would be doing was

just what Jesus was doing. They could not deny that the Spirit of God was

upon Him. Like Nicodemus, they recognized that except God be with Him, He

could not have done the great miracles that He had done. They acknowledged

that it most certainly looked as if He were the Messiah of God. If He were

not the Messiah of God, then they were at a loss to explain how He could

have done those miracles. So they all bare Him witness that the words of

the Scripture and the facts about His ministry supported His claim that He

is the Messiah of God.

Furthermore they marveled at His speech. (V. 22), "...and wondered at

the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth..." This was not at all

what they were accustomed to hearing from the Pharisees. The speeches of

the Pharisees were harsh and accusing and demanding. In contrast, the words

of Jesus were promising and reassuring.

Neither were His words what they had come to expect from the promised

Messiah. They were expecting the Messiah to come speaking words that would

arouse them to make war against the Romans. They thought that He would

demand their money to support His forthcoming new government and to support

His war efforts against the Romans. They thought He would be demanding

their men and their sons and that He would speak words of bitterness and

hatred against the Romans. They thought that His promises of liberty could

be bought only with their time, their money, and their blood.

Instead of speaking words of harsh demands which would require their

fortunes and their blood, He was words of warmth and love. He was promising

liberty without warfare. He was promising healing without price. He was

promising them everything and demanding of them nothing. At least He

demanded nothing like they had expected. His words were gracious words,

kind words, soothing words, loving words.

II. The real attitude of the people toward Jesus

(V. 22), "...And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?" In these words,

we get at least a hint of the real attitude of the people toward Jesus and

toward His claim that He is the Messiah, the Christ. They very readily

admitted that the Scripture fit His life and His ministry. They

acknowledged that He was doing the very things that the Scripture said that

the Messiah would be doing. But that does not mean that they were ready to

admit that He is the Christ.

They said, "Is He not Joseph's son?" Now at this point they were not

trying to deny that He is the Son of God. At this point He had not revealed

to them that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and not by Joseph. It was

just that they had expected something better of the Messiah. They had

expected that He would be born in the home of some rich and powerful man.

They thought He would be born in the home of some notable princely man with

a great reputation. They just could not fathom the idea that the Christ

would come from the home of a lowly carpenter. The idea that they were

expressing was: "How in the world can He be the Christ and be born in the

home of carpenter?"

It did not matter to them that the Scripture clearly identified Him

as the Christ. They ignored the word of God and refused to accept Him as

the Christ. Since He did not measure up to what they had expected of the

Christ, they rejected Him as the Christ. They were ready to accept Him as a

healer, but they were not ready to accept Him as the Christ. They were not

ready to accept Him as Savior.

Now before you become overly critical of those Jews I want you to see

that a lot of people do the same thing today. They can easily ignore the

plain teachings of the Scripture and they use the own human reasoning and

they say, "We just do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. We just do

not believe that He arose from the dead. We just do not believe that you

can be saved and go to heaven just because you have trusted in Jesus. There

must be more to it than that.

III. Jesus's awareness of their thinking

Jesus, of course, knew what they said and He knew their thinking. V.

23, "And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb,

Physician, heal thyself..." As a healer He as looked upon as a physician.

But they did not have the right attitude toward Him as a physician. Their

attitude was, "Physician, heal thyself."

That expression, "Physician, heal thyself" is a saying that dates way

back. It was very familiar to all even in that day. The idea expressed in

the saying is that one would not want to go to a physician to be treated for

an illness if the physician, himself, had the same disease and could not

cure himself. The twist that the Jews were putting to the saying involved

the physicians friends and neighbors. If the physician could not or would

not heal the friends and neighbors who live immediately around him, then

other people would not trust him to heal themselves.

It may not be clear at first what Jesus meant by saying, what He did in

the latter part of the verse. He quoted the people as saying: (V. 23),

"...whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy

country." Jesus said that they took the attitude toward Him that if He were

really the Christ, as He said He is, that He would have done the same kind

of miracles right there in Nazareth among His friends and neighbors that He

had been doing over in Capernaum. In other words they had the attitude that

if you want us to believe that you are the Christ, you will have to perform

the same kind of great miracles right here in Nazareth that you have been

performing over in Capernaum. But if you will not perform those miracles

here then we will not believe that you are the Christ.

How ridiculous can you get! That is like an unsaved man today saying to

Jesus, "Save my soul and take me to heaven and then I will believe in you as

my Savior. But if you do not save me and take me to heaven then I will not

believe in you that you are the Savior." It just does not work that way.

IV. Jesus's explanation of their unacceptance of Him

V. 24, "And he said, Verily, I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in

his own country." Jesus here sets out to explain to them why He had not

done as many miracles and as great miracles in Nazareth as He had done in

Capernaum. The reason is that He had not been as accepted by the people of

Nazareth as He had been in Capernaum. He said in effect, "No prophet is as

accepted in his own country as he is in some other country." If the people

of Nazareth had believed in Him then He would have performed just as great

miracles in Nazareth as He had done in Capernaum. But because they had not

believed in Him, He had not performed miracles in Nazareth as He had done in

Capernaum. Like any of God's prophets, He was forced to go elsewhere to

perform His miracles because of their unbelief.

Jesus then cited two examples from the Old Testament. The first of

these examples was about Elijah. V. 25-26, "But I tell you of a truth,

many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up

three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;

But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon,

unto a woman that was a widow."

The word, Elias, here is the New Testament spelling of the Old Testament

word, Elijah. Elijah was of the nation of Israel and during the time of

drought in Israel should have been able to find someone in Israel who would

furnish him his meals during that time of drought. But, instead, God had to

send Elijah plum out of the nation of Israel to the land of the Philistines

over around Sidon in order to find someone who was willing to feed Elijah.

The fact that none of the people of Israel was willing to feed Elijah was

not proof that was not a prophet of God.

The second illustration was about Elisha. V. 27, "And many lepers were

in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed,

saving Naaman the Syrian." The word, Eliseus, is the New Testament spelling

of the Old Testament word, Elisha. Elisha was a prophet of Israel, and

there were an abundance of lepers in Israel. Yet Elisha did not heal any of

the lepers of Israel. He healed a leper of Syria instead. Why? It was not

that there was a shortage of lepers in Israel for him to heal. It was

because this Syrian was the very first leper who had come to him asking him

Elisha to heal him.

Now why was it that Jesus had not performed any great miracles in

Nazareth? It was not that He did not care for the people of Nazareth. It

was not that He lacked the power to heal them? It certainly was not an

indication that He is not really the Christ. The fact of the matter is that

the people of Nazareth had not brought their sick to Him trusting in Him to

heal them.

V. The wrath of the people

V. 28, "And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things,

were filled with wrath." All that Jesus had said to them was the truth.

That was what hurt. The truth hurt. He told them the truth about

themselves and they got mad at Him.

We see a similar thing today. All men are sinners. All lost sinners

are on the road to hell. But when God's preacher tells them that they are

sinners some people get mad at God's preacher.

So these people got mad a Jesus for telling them that the reason He had

not performed any great miracles in Nazareth was their fault, they got mad

at Him. They got fighting mad. They got murderously mad.

V. 29, "And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto

the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him

down headlong." I understand that Nazareth was built on a hill that stood

about four or five hundred feet above the surrounding territory. So the

people of the synagogue, the people who had known Jesus as a little boy, the

people who had once been counted as friends and neighbors to Joseph and Mary

and to all the children, got so mad at Jesus that they tried to kill Him.

They carried Him out of the synagogue and out of the city and out to a high

cliff and they intended to throw Him down that cliff head first.

VI. The escape of Jesus

But as they drew near to the cliff to throw Jesus down the cliff they

ran into a problem. All of a sudden they were asking, "Where is He? Who

has got Him? Where did He go? What happened?" And nobody knew what

happened. All they knew was that He was gone. Jesus was gone.

Luke does not tell even us just exactly what happened. All Luke tells

us is that Jesus passed right through their midst and left. He did not just

vanish into thin air. He just calmly walked away and was gone and there was

nothing they could do to stop it and they did not even know what happened.

V. 30, "But he passing through the midst of them went his way..."

But there is something that I want you to see right here. Jesus did not

escape from them just in order to spare His life. Who could have blamed Him

if that had been the reason? But it wasn't. The reason that Jesus walked

away from that mob was not to keep from dying. The reason that He left them

unharmed was in order that He might die a more horrible death. If Jesus had

allowed them to kill Him by throwing Him down that cliff, we would be

without hope of salvation. All mankind would be without a Savior. We would

all be lost and on the road to hell. Jesus did not walk away unharmed for

His sake. He walked away for our sake. He walked away in order that every

man woman, boy and girl could have an opportunity to be saved.

VII. The danger today

The great danger is that a lot of people are doing the same thing today

that the people of Nazareth did. A lot of people are rejecting Jesus as the

Christ and as the Savior. Even a lot of people who hear the gospel and who

will acknowledge that the Scriptures teach that Jesus is the Christ. Some

even acknowledge that Jesus is the Savior and still they reject Him and do

not trust Him to save their souls.

The point that I am making is that it is too late now for the people of

Nazareth. They are already dead and gone and it is forever too late for

them to ever be saved. They could have been saved. They had Jesus Christ,

the Son of God, right in their worship service. They saw Him with their own

eyes and they heard Him with their own ears, but they rejected Him as the

Savior with their own hearts.

But is not too late for you. At least it is not too late yet. You have

the opportunity to repent of your sins and to call on Jesus and trust Him to

save your soul. If you will repent and if you will trust in Him as your

Savior, Jesus will save you and keep you out of hell. He will reach down

from heaven through the power of the Holy Spirit and you will be born again.

Your soul will be born again. It will be changed within. You will never

enter into the fires of hell. Instead you will go to heaven some day.

You can be saved today. You can be saved right here in this service

today. But if you do not get saved today, you may never be saved. You may

never be born again unless you call on Jesus today. At the very least we

can say that if you keep putting off the salvation of your soul until some

other time, then one of these days it will be too late. You will wind up in

the fires of hell and you will never be saved.

Conclusion:

What I am asking you to do is to call Jesus right now and trust Him

right now to save your soul. I have been preaching to you about the

rejection of Jesus at Nazareth, but what I am really hoping and praying for

is for the acceptance of Jesus here at Pleasant Hill.