Jesus on Offense

Luke 4:31…

Having absorbed the best shots of Satan, in the form of temptation and rejection, Jesus goes on offense.

Indeed, Jesus has come to die. That is His purpose and His Divine plan and mission. But prior to His sacrificial death for all the sin of mankind, Jesus has much to accomplish. He has come to usher in the kingdom of God on earth, as it is in heaven.

One of the key features of heaven is the removal of any influence of Satan, and Jesus would bring that about in His presence on earth as well. In Jesus’ presence, Satan would have no power, and no influence. Satan would be revealed, and he would be removed from the scene. This was the ministry of Christ.

It began with teaching the people about the love of God in the synagogues where they gathered to hear God’s Word. For so long – too long – the people had actually been hearing the Word of God taught by sons of Satan, (see John 8:44.) All the while the people thought they were being taught by sons of God. Jesus showed them their priests were no such thing. They were not good men, they were evil men. They were not bringing God’s people closer to God - they were driving them away from God. The priests were not removing the middle wall of separation between God and man – they were building it higher.

As Jesus taught, the people saw something entirely new, and it was refreshing and empowering. They were hearing the true meaning of the Word of God, and it excited them in all the ways it was meant to excite. They recognized Jesus’ authority to teach, even if they didn’t understand where His authority came from. (Of course we know His authority was from God, and we can only imagine what it may have been like to have been in His presence as He taught.) The people were plainly astonished, just by hearing the Word of God coming from the mouth of God in man.

And in the arena of defeating evil, Jesus put God’s Word into action. He took back the gains Satan had made in the world in the lives of the people He touched. Satan’s hold was destroyed on every front in every life at the Word and the touch of Christ.

-Pastor Bill

Jesus of Nazareth?

Luke 4:14…

Now we begin to see the WORKS of the Messiah, exactly as they had been prophesied to be in the Old Testament.

From His time in the wilderness, having proven Himself through temptation, (NOT by avoiding it,) Jesus headed immediately to His home region of the Galilee in the power of the Spirit.

This lets us know His direction was not a whim but a leading. Perhaps we might think to first establish ourselves in the region of our greatest familiarity, and this is what Jesus was led to as well, only by the Holy Spirit and not of His own thought.

And He taught in all their synagogues. He was not a rabble-rouser seeking some new thing outside the “church” but was a reformer seeking to work within the religious system, no matter how corrupt. He was, after all, a very Jewish Messiah.

But His ministry would be to remind the people, (or to announce to the people,) that while He was in fact Jewish through-and-through, they were Jewish in name only.

Their ‘religion’ had them trapped hopelessly in a system of laws and burdens that God had never imagined or desired. Men had replaced God, and sought to be served rather than to serve.

Jesus would turn this on its head – by serving.

So He taught in all their synagogues as One having authority, because He did. He would reform the “faith” they practiced into a faith of belief, but only if they would allow it. As hardened, brittle, systematic practitioners of a religious system rather than loving the grace of God, Jesus would first cut them to the quick by words of conviction which would serve as a mirror to show them their true condition before God.

This would lead to His rejection in His own home town. Nazareth was the first place to literally attempt to kill Jesus. They would have thrown Him of the cliff at the edge of town to the rocks below. Strange then, isn’t it, that He is referred to as Jesus of Nazareth?

-Pastor Bill

The Temptation

Luke 4:1…

Now that Jesus has been baptized, and His public ministry life has begun, you might think He would immediately be led to heal and to teach and to reveal to all the people the long-promised Messiah has come.

All of that would have to wait.

For immediately upon His baptism, Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit, was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness – away from anyone.

Is this any way to begin a ministry?

The Bible teaches us we serve a Savior Who as Our High Priest is intimately familiar with all of life on earth, including all the ways we are tempted. Hebrews 4:15 teaches us Jesus was tempted in ALL the points we are tempted, yet was without sin.

This reveals to us a couple things that are profound to our understanding: temptation itself is not sin; and, we are capable of resisting temptation when it comes.

In fact, we are without excuse when we yield to temptation, because Jesus has not only revealed who the tempter is, He has also shown us how to defend ourselves from all temptation when it comes.

Jesus may have been alone in this period of forty days in the desert, but the Holy Spirit was careful to record these events that we may learn important lessons necessary for life in Christ on this earth.

Moses was forty years in the back of the desert in preparation for his ministry – Jesus was forty days similarly prepared. It seems being hardened to the offerings of the enemy is a lesson that must be learned prior to serving people and receiving any form of acclaim.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are the tools the enemy employs against all of us – including Christ. Christ’s defense is the Word of God.

-Pastor Bill

The Trinity Appears

Luke 3:21…

At the height of the ministry of John the Baptist, Jesus suddenly appeared once more.

It has been 18 years since we last saw Him as a twelve year old boy teaching and asking questions of the religious leaders in the Temple at Jerusalem.

We were told Jesus during this interim time “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” (Luke 2:52)

When John’s ministry had accomplished all it was designed to do in preparing hearts for the ministry of Jesus the Christ, it came to pass Jesus was also baptized.

This is curious event that has had theologians speculating down through the centuries about its meaning and purpose. Surely Jesus was NOT baptized for repentance, since He was without sin. Why then was Jesus baptized?

While we cannot answer with certainty about all God was meaning with the baptism of Jesus, we can observe some things about God and about Jesus and about the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ baptism, and perhaps we can see God’s purpose in this.

For one thing - and it is HUGE - we at one time and in one place can observe the appearance of all three persons of the Godhead. One of the central tenets of orthodox Christianity is the fact God exists and has always existed as One God in Three Persons. This is known of as ‘the doctrine of the Trinity.’

While the revelation of the Trinity has been shrouded to God’s people throughout the history of mankind, at Jesus’ baptism we see the Triune nature of God more fully revealed. While it remains beyond our ability to understand or fully comprehend God’s Triune nature, we can recognize it when we see it – even if we CANNOT explain it.

Here we SEE Jesus coming up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descending upon Him in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Father, declaring from heaven, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.” This is one of the most fantastic passages in all of God’s Word, and it should not be lightly passed over.

-Pastor Bill

Starting From Scratch

Luke 3:1…

One of the things that makes even the thought of how to begin a ministry from scratch so difficult is: Where to begin?

How can this possibly happen? How can anyone understand what is happening here? Where will the people come from, and what will bring them?

The whole thing just seems impossible, doesn’t it?

I completely understand the needfulness of the ministry of John the Baptist. He was the necessary preparation of and for the ministry of Jesus Christ. It was through John that the Holy Spirit made the kind of introduction into the hearts of both a very religious and non-religious people that made the ministry of Jesus Christ possible.

That Jesus followed John was not only history, it was necessary.

In a prophetic sense it had been declared Messiah would come only after Elijah had come first. It was necessary for John to come to fulfill prophecy of Malachi 4:5. It had to happen this way to fulfill God’s Word. But it also had to happen this way to make it happen. Sometimes we forget God’s Word of prophecy has a functional purpose. It is also a declaration of what must happen to make it happen.

John had to happen for Jesus to happen, functionally, Spiritually.

John was more than a warm-up act - but he did perform a similar function. He broke the ice, so-to-speak, by sounding an alarm the conscience could hear. The previous ministries in the land had been designed to soothe the brain through a sort of alignment with an external law that men had contrived to make themselves feel better about themselves as they compared themselves to others. But what about the others? Who could or would help them?

John sounded a truth alarm to let EVERYONE know they were the ‘others’. This law you have been pretending to keep is a sham, and God sees it and God knows it. A heart that has heard this message has been prepared for the message of Jesus Christ.

-Pastor Bill