Sometimes the truth hurts.

LUKE 4:14-28

There was one thing I always loved about Jesus, he always told the truth and he didn’t care what the reaction of people would be. If anyone asked him a question he always spoke the truth. It seems to me if anyone was big enough to ask the question, he was also big enough to handle the truth. Jesus never whitewashed an answer when responding to a question. Sometimes I think that is what is missing in the church today, we are afraid to offend people with the truthful answer.

This brings me to this story in Luke. Jesus just gets done being tempted by the devil in the wilderness, and he returns to the cities of Galilee to preach in your synagogues. He went into his hometown of Nazareth, stood up in the synagogue, and read from the book of Isaiah.  This is how he starts his ministry. He goes into his hometown of Nazareth, was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. But on the sabbath in a certain synagogue, he stood up and read this from the prophet Isaiah

” The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor, he has sent me to proclaim freedom from the prisoners and recovery sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor “

I can imagine this must have been a tense moment because it said that all eyes were fastened on him. Then he said ” today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”

But then they started asking, isn’t this the son of Joseph?

Then Jesus said ” Surely you will “this proverb to me: ‘physician, here yourself!, And you will tell me, do here in your hometown what we have heard you did in Capernaum”

Now Jesus brings up two stories, which I think is very interesting, he says in the time of Elijah, that God sent Elijah to a widow and Zarephath, in the region of Sidon. This place was not in Israel but the enemy’s country.

The second story he tells was of general Naaman. Naaman was sent to Elisha, to be healed of leprosy. Naaman was a Syrian! He was a general of the army, to Israel’s enemy. God healed the general of Israel’s enemy.

The Jews interpreted the passage he read as a prophecy specifically for the Messiah. So in Jesus reading this in the synagogue and then stating today this prophecy is fulfilled Jesus was saying he was the Messiah, everybody knew this. They did not believe him and wanted him to give a sign, that is the meaning of ‘physician heal yourself’, show us a sign! They only seen Jesus as Joseph and Mary’s son, the carpenter. Israel believe that the Messiah was going to come back, reestablish David’s kingdom and rule and become a powerful nation again. But Jesus had to remind him that the prophet Elijah bypassed all the windows in Israel to help a gentile widow Sidon. He also reminded him that he helped in gentile general from the enemies camp during, the general Naanum. God cured him of leprosy. Jesus was trying to tell them here coming to the world to save the whole world. All through the New Testament people are always asking him for a sign and he never gave it, he always told people to believe in him by his works and what he said. 

Question? Do you trust Jesus? Do you want him to show you a sign before you will believe in him? Can you trust in him by just what he says, or are you looking for some other kind of proof? Trust can only happen one way, you just do it. It’s only when someone breaks the trust that it’s hard to get back. But at the start, you just have to do it and wait to see if what you put your trust in is true.

I am going to tell you right now that you can trust him. So start putting your trust in him today, and see what happens.