“From Praise to Rage!” – FBC Morning Light (10/17/2024)

Well a good Thursday morning to you. Today in our Bible reading we're all over the place in the Gospels. I'm not going to try to itemize every one of the passages that are in the Bible reading plan. If you've been following along with it, you have it somewhere.

It's also like on our website and so forth, the church website. But we are reading in each of the four Gospels, and I want to zero in on account in Luke chapter 4. By the way, let me pause here and just point out that, you know, in a chronological reading through the Bible, especially in the Gospels, it gets a little complicated because, you know, you have each of the different, each of the Gospels are recording events in Jesus' life and ministry, sometimes in different order.

And some aren't, I mean, they're not all chronological, they just have different purposes for including things in different places. So you're jumping back and forth in the Gospels, in the Gospel account.

Well anyway, I want to focus on Luke chapter 4. We're reading there verses 14 to 30 today, and what we see here is something that exists, that every preacher of the Gospel knows and has experienced. And that is, it's amazing how the way, you know, people will respond sometimes initially with a great deal of appreciation.

So Jesus experiences this in Luke 4, verse 15, it says, well verse 14, Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of him spread throughout all the surrounding region, and he taught in their synagogues, and then it says, being glorified by all.

So what Jesus was saying, teaching in the synagogues, how his manner, his approach, his application, his authority, people were glorifying him, they were appreciating what he had to say. You see this again in verse 22, when Jesus was in the synagogue in Nazareth, and he says, all bore witness to him and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, and they said, is this not Joseph's son?

They're just so amazed at how gracious are his words. After all, this is just, this is somebody who grew up here, and they are so deeply appreciative. And I think every preacher's probably experienced that, and as one who's been in my years of ministry in a few different churches, been in this one for 22 years, thank the Lord, but it's like when you start a ministry, the new guys in town and, you know, the fact that the church and the Baptist Church, the church calls the pastor, the church has called this guy, they must have, enough people must have liked what he said in his preaching when he came for his candidating sermons and so forth, and so they're very appreciative at first.

At first. But it's interesting how, later on, that some of those same people who responded with applause and appreciation can respond with animosity and anger. You see this in verses 28 and 29 of Luke chapter 4.

It says, So all those in the synagogue, including those who earlier were marveling at the gracious words, all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and they rose up and thrust him out of the city, and they led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down over the cliff.

What in the world happened? How did they go from appreciating his gracious words to wanting to throw him off a cliff and get rid of him? Well, the answer is what's found in between, verses 22 and 28. Verses 23 through 27, you find Jesus making some very pointed application of the Word.

The trigger, if you will, was confrontation over personal sin. He tells them, there's going to come a time when I, as the prophet, am going to be rejected, because a prophet is without honor except in his own country, says in verse 24.

And then he applies that to the people there in Nazareth, and he says, I tell you, truly many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, there was great famine throughout the land, but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, a region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.

And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except for Nahum and the Syrian. In other words, what Jesus is saying is, you're going to be rejected just as Israel was rejected when Elijah was sent to, when Elisha cleansed Nahum and the Syrian, and when Elijah went to Zarephath.

People didn't like that. I like it when you say nice things, and I like it when you talk about other people, but boy, when you start stepping on my toes, I don't like that one bit. Well, as one who's been there, done that, got the t-shirt, I know what that's like, but I just want to challenge, I want to challenge all of us to be careful about how we respond to the preaching of the Word when our toes are stepped on, when we are personally confronted with the Word.

You know, preachers don't stand up and, well, I shouldn't say that, a good pastor, teacher, is not going to stand up in the pulpit and knowingly pick out somebody in the congregation and preach to them.

It's not going to happen. What usually happens is, he's got a passage of Scripture, he's preaching it, he's making application of the Scripture, and there may be someone in the crowd who's guilty of violating, of disobeying that Scripture, and they know it, the person who is guilty knows it, the pastor may or may not know it, probably doesn't.

The Holy Spirit knows it. How does that person respond? Well, the sensitive to the Spirit, the one who loves the Lord believer is going to respond with appreciation, because he knows God gave that message to the pastor today for my good, and I got something I need to deal with.

Thank you, pastor, for bringing that out. I hope that's your attitude, I hope that's your heart. Father and our God, I thank you for your Word and its power, and it's confronting us when we need to be confronted.

I pray that we'd appreciate it rather than reject it. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, listen, I hope you have a good rest of your Thursday, and may the Lord bless you in it. Good day.