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Scripture: Luke 4:14-30 (cf.
21-30); Psalms 71:1-6; I Corinthians 13:1-13
THEME: Stopping the Son of God - Epiphany 4 C
Proposition: Luke shares how those early Nazarenes were able to stop the Son of God - 1. Through their small mindedness 2. Through their attempt to keep Jesus in a box 3. Through their doubt and mistrust
INTRO:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ who came to take away the sin of the world.
Good morning!
The great 20th century poet, Khalil Gibran wrote “It has been said that next to hunger and thirst, our most basic human need is for storytelling.”
Most of us enjoy either hearing or telling a great story.
Since the time of Adam and Eve, humans have shared stories.
Stories can hold great power.
Stories can inspire us, challenge us, bring out our deepest emotions and transform our worlds.
Stories can change our lives.
My father was a pretty good story teller.
Each night around our supper table he would share with us some stories.
Usually, they had something to do with what happened that day at work.
Sometimes it was a story that someone had shared with him.
More often than not, each of his stories would have a hook.
That is to say that they were more than just stories, they were stories that he used to teach, to inspire and to challenge us.
More than anything I think he wanted us to seize the opportunities that life had for each of us.
He would tell us these very personal stories about the struggles of his childhood, not to make us feel guilty or feel sorry for him.
He would share those stories so that we would be inspired to reach out and take full advantage of all the wonderful opportunities and chances that that existed around us.
He was trying to provide for us the means to have a better, richer and more fulfilling life than he or mom had experienced.
Now, years later I find myself trying to do the same thing.
You and I live in an amazing world.
All around us are opportunities and prospect that can lead us to experience life to its fullest.
We live in a time of great blessings and favor.
We live on the cusp of a great revival.
My passion for sharing some stories revolves around my desire for people to experience The LORD in new and refreshing ways.
I want everyone to enjoy the tremendous blessings and favor that The LORD has for them through His Word and the infilling of His Holy Spirit.
I fundamentally believe that the best lived life is one that is dedicated to experiencing the LORD, the Bible and the fullness of His Holy Spirit in their lives.
I don't want people to live a life void of experiencing a rich and deep prayer life.
I don't want them to miss what it means to passionately study and meditate on God's Word.
I don't want people to miss the fervor of true praise and worship.
I don't want people to miss out on the supernatural touch of The LORD in their lives.
When all is said and done ( as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13), the main thing in this life is love; love for The LORD foremost and love for one another.
Everything else simply fades away.
Only faith, hope and love remain and the greatest of these is love.
And there is no greater love than being in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In Luke chapter 4:14-30, Luke shares that Jesus is among his family and friends in Nazareth.
They have all gathered at the synagogue for worship.
His fellow Nazarenes have come to hear him speak.
Jesus' growing reputation for being a miracle worker had no doubt made him a local celebrity.
The other Gospel writers let us know that by this time, Jesus had already preformed many healings, including raising someone from the dead and casting out demons (Mark 5, Matthew 12).
Luke 4:22 shares with us that his fellow Nazarenes were both amazed and astonished at his teaching.
"They spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming out of his mouth."
It was right at that moment that Luke shares a rather strange turn of events.
The longer Jesus spoke the more the crowd became agitated, restless and upset.
So upset that by the time Jesus was finished with his sermon, the people were determined to get rid of the young Nazarene by throwing him off a cliff (v.
28-29).
In a matter of minutes Jesus went from "gracious words" to "they rose up and drove him out of town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff."
What in the world happened?
What caused this group of Nazarenes to turn so violently on Jesus?
What caused them to miss out on Jesus being able to bring healing and wholeness to the people of Nazareth?
Following this passage, Luke shares the story of how Jesus went to Capernaum ( 20 miles away) where they fell in love with Him.
In Capernaum, Jesus was able to heal people, cast out demons and transform lives.
All the things that Jesus had said that He had been anointed by the Holy Spirit to do back in verse 18, He was able to do in Capernaum.
This was not true among His fellow Nazarenes.
So, exactly what and how did those early Nazarenes stop Jesus?
How were they able to take God's Only Son and stop him from preaching, from healing and from being redemption to their town.
For what they did here in this passage serves as a lesson of warning to all of us this morning.
If those early Nazarenes were able to stop Jesus by their attitudes and their actions we must be careful that we don't fall to the same temptation.
1.
They were able to stop Jesus by being small (narrow) minded
A. It didn't take long while Jesus was preaching and teaching for someone to start whispering and asking questions - "Hey, isn't he just Joseph's son?" Isn't he just the son of a common stone mason/carpenter?
Who does Jesus think he is telling us what to do?
Why, we have known him and his family all of his life.
Who does He think He is to preach to us this way?
Those people began to become very small thinkers.
Thinking small can be fatal.
Being narrow minded can be deadly to one's spiritual walk.
There is an old story concerning a bunch of fleas.
It seems that they were hanging around on a blanket, just jumping up and down having a blast.
And then someone came up and put a jar over them.
Not knowing what happened they still keep jumping, but after hitting their heads a few times — they got the message and stopped jumping so high.
Though they still jumped they stopped an inch from the top of the jar.
After an hour the person removed the jar lid, but the fleas never knew the difference, because they had fixed into their minds an imaginary ceiling.
Though they could now jump higher, they never did because of the imaginary barrier that they had placed in their own minds.1
Small mindedness has caused a great many people to miss out on the greatness of others:
Gary Cooper stated that he was happy that he did not get the star role in GONE WITH THE WIND.
He thought that both Clark Gable and Gone with the Wind would never amount to anything.
He believed they both would go down as colossal failures.
Beethoven's first music teacher told the young man that he had no talent at all and that he would grow up to be a nobody.
Thomas Edison's parents were encouraged to keep young Edison at home.
His teacher sent a note home that said: Your son is addled [mentally ill].
We won’t let him come to school any more.
Walt Disney was fired by his newspaper editor who declared that Disney would always be a failure.
He believed that Disney had no creative ability at all.
As we all know, each of those people were amazing successes.
Each were able to accomplish so much for themselves and for all of our world.
Where would we be without Beethoven, Edison or Disney?
Gone with the Wind is still the #1 movie of all time.3
Small mindedness kept those around those people unable to see their truth worth and value.
Small mindedness kept them from being able to see and experience intelligence and brilliance.
This morning, the same small mindedness can destroy our spiritual journey.
It is one thing to walk the narrow road and quite another to be narrow or small minded.
Luke shares that this group of Nazarenes missed out because of their inability to receive Jesus as the Son of God.
They suffered from small mindedness.
This morning, we must understand and believe that the LORD has blessings, favor and anointings for our communities and for our church.
We must understand that the LORD wants to promote and work through us to be a congregation of redemption, renewal and restoration.
We must understand that the LORD wants each of us to be the recipient of many miracles and blessings beyond our comprehensions.
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