Good News for the Wrong People

Transcript

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[0:00] Well, let's look at Luke 4, 14 through 21, this beautiful passage, Jesus in the synagogue in his hometown. He announces the beginning of his ministry. And I want to give a little bit of background around this because in Luke chapter 4, it says that Jesus is led by the Spirit to start preaching sort of more openly. But before that, in Luke chapter 3, verse 22, Jesus is baptized, and it says the Spirit descends on Jesus in bodily form like a dove, which would have been an interesting thing to see. But so the Spirit actually kind of takes on matter in this weird moment. And we don't make much of this. I don't know too much theology that's developed about this, but the Spirit comes and descends on Jesus in the form of a dove. And then in Luke chapter 4, the very beginning of Luke, you may remember that after he's baptized, Jesus goes into the wilderness. And he's in the wilderness. And he's in the wilderness. And he's in the wilderness. to be tempted for 40 days and 40 nights. But Luke tells us that it's the Spirit that leads Jesus into the desert. So there's the Spirit is showing up a lot. And today, we'll see that, yes, Jesus is being led by the Spirit to preach, but also he's going to quote from Isaiah

[1:12] about how the Spirit is upon him as a fulfillment of prophecy. So let's not forget that the Spirit is really active in Luke chapter 3 and 4, which is astounding, because I think sometimes as Protestants, or as non-charismatic Protestants, we don't really always know what to do with the Holy Spirit, but yet the Spirit shows up in our scripture over and over again. And so we need to really pay attention to that. The Spirit is leading Jesus to do all sorts of things, and the Spirit is present with Jesus in all sorts of things. So we'll talk about that a little bit later. The other thing I want to mention is the synagogue. It's a fascinating place. It's like church, but it's not like church, really. And this may be one of the earliest mentions of a synagogue. It's the first synagogue service in all of literature, because the synagogues, they didn't always exist, OK? We can talk more about the history of the synagogue some other time, but in the synagogue service, which would have been on a Saturday, there's prayers and there's Psalms, but then there's this reading from the scrolls, and any literate man, it has to be a man, of course, that's how it was, any literate man could go up and read from the scroll. And so Jesus does this in our passage today.

[2:25] from Isaiah. And then a rabbi would teach on the reading sometimes, and it was customary to sit down to teach. So when we read that Jesus sits down and starts to teach, it means that he's putting himself in the role of the rabbi of this synagogue. So he is not afraid of being a teacher. Even in Luke, the end of Luke chapter 2, we hear that Jesus stays behind in Jerusalem, kind of gets lost among all the cousins, and he's at the temple teaching as like a 13-year-old boy. So he's always a rabbi, no matter where he is. Can you imagine the older people at the temple going, who is this kid? He's like the Albert Einstein of Bible scholars. How does he know all this, right? And so you sit down to teach, and it's different because where we are, like at a school, the students sit down and the teacher stands up to teach. But in the synagogue, the teacher sits down because sitting is the repose or the sit-down. So he's not afraid of being a rabbi. Sitting is sort of the outward expression that if I sit, now I'm going to teach because this teaching comes from a sitting person. And we don't know if the congregation was also sitting or standing. It might have varied from synagogue to synagogue, but Jesus sitting down would have been

[3:40] sort of a kind of a clue to everybody else that he was about to teach, and thus he does teach, and that's really great. And then there's a reminder here, another little section that I want you to hold on to for some other day. But this is a reminder here, another little section that I want you to hold on to for some other day. But this is a great reminder that despite the fact that Jesus was a carpenter's son, and you might not expect him to actually be able to read, it's clear that he can read. Now you could also say, well, he's the Lord of the universe. Of course he can read. You know, he knows all the words. He knows every language. And so this gets into this interesting question about the incarnation. What are Jesus's skill sets as a human versus what are his skill sets versus being the Son of God? And obviously the Son of God can read, but you wonder if he was taught to read. Not everybody who's a carpenter, that's manual labor. Not everybody would take the time even to learn to read. But in that culture, especially if they went to synagogue often, reading and writing was probably encouraged. So I think we have a pretty good sense that Jesus was a literate person who could definitely read. Of course he could

[4:44] write. If he could read, he could probably write. But it raises interesting questions about the incarnation, because sometimes Jesus does know things. That a mere human couldn't. Like he can kind of read minds. He knows what the Pharisees were thinking. You see that passage every now and then in the scriptures. He knows things. So it gets interesting. But hold on to that for some other day, because we want to definitely at some point talk about the incarnation and what it means. And even those little details kind of are clues to something important. So that's the background. He's in the synagogue. And let's go to our reading now, Luke 4, 14 through 21 from the New Living Translation. Verse 14 begins like this. Then Jesus returned to Galilee, And this is from Isaiah 61.

[6:12] He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him, and he said, Then he began to speak to them. The scripture you've just heard has been fulfilled this very day. Let's pray.

[6:36] Father, thank you for your word. We ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name. Amen. So, as I said, Jesus is reading from Isaiah chapter 61. And this section in Isaiah, the later part of Isaiah, is the first part of the book. And it says, This is really a lot about the return from captivity from Babylon. This is these prophetic sayings that all sorts of things will happen when God brings his people out of captivity. And captivity is this really important sort of theological category in the history of Israel because they were physically held captive in a foreign country. But it works on a lot of levels, too. That there's a spiritual captivity that is definitely something that God addresses, too. Even Martin Luther understood that. One of his most famous words was, And I think this is a very important part of the book. It's called, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. That's one of his most famous treatises by Martin Luther, where he's saying Babylon still exists, not as a country in Mesopotamia, which it used to be, but it doesn't exist anymore. But that the church itself, the Christian church, he's saying, was still in Babylon. He was talking about the Roman Catholic Church, as it turns out.

[7:47] But that all sorts of people were in bondage to works righteousness. This idea that you could buy indulgences and get out of your sins. You could pay for all your sins. And nowhere was the freeing and redemptive grace of God evident to anybody. And so that was part of what Martin Luther was all about, was saying the grace of God is what sets you free. And so this idea of being in captivity works on all sorts of levels, both historically, physically, spiritually. And it's not just for the people of Israel, but anyone in theory. This idea of Babylon is that place where you're kept captive. And you're not able to sort of live into the full trueness and freedom that God has for you. So I'm going to ask Steve to bring up Isaiah 61.

[8:32] And we're going to go through the verses of it, because this is what Jesus is saying. And I think we want to look at what is it that he's saying, because this is how he is starting his ministry. Like he's come out of the temptation in the wilderness. And having passed that test, he is ready to now get to work. So here he says, And so again, we have the Spirit, right? The Spirit, even in the Old Testament, the Spirit is there. And it gives him this ability to speak. So the Spirit is kind of leading, you know. The Spirit is, if it's upon you, it's sort of empowering you and it's giving you ways to speak, which it happens at Pentecost, of course. And then it says, And this is a reminder that that word anoint is in Hebrew. Hebrew is mashal. And that could mean to smear something with oil. So you could anoint your shield and make it shiny. But you could also anoint your head. And that was sometimes just to put oil on your head. But in the way it was done to King David, when Samuel anointed him, it was this very symbolic pouring of oil on his head as a way of saying, this is the new king. So an anointing is this way of saying, and we use the word anoint even in our language today. Somebody's been anointed.

[9:52] Somebody's been anointed to do something. It literally means oil has been poured on their head, which doesn't sound great. But spiritually, it means this person has been chosen for a great task. And the Messiah is the mashia. The mashia is the one who has been mashal. The Messiah is the one who has been anointed. So if you see the word anointed, that means we're talking about the Messiah. So the Messiah is, this is messianic language, is all we're saying here. Is that Isaiah 61, verse 1 is saying, So what does he say? He's going to bring good news to the poor. That's the next part of the verse. And so God is telling us who his heart is going out to. In this case, it's the poor. And we're going to get to that later about the poor versus other people, right? He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted. So God also cares about those who are mourning, and he wants to comfort them. And to proclaim that captives will be released. And prisoners are free. And so God does care about captivity. He cares about the poor. He cares about the brokenhearted. And he cares about those in captivity. Try to remember those categories. But God cares about people who are in bondage. To Babylon, to sin, to oppression, even to poverty.

[11:12] So there's a whole range of things. So the good news is coming to people who are in trouble of all kinds, right? And then, verse 2, and it should be up there. Yeah. There it is. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord's favor has come. Now, that says the time of the Lord's favor. Other translations would have this as the year of God's favor. And that would be kind of a hint that it may be talking about something in the Jewish calendar called the year of Jubilee. Every 50 years, there's this special year where debts are forgiven. Sounds funny. You know, it's like if I was a banker, I'd be like, wait, the year of Jubilee is three years away. I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait to give this loan until, you know. So people could kind of game this. And actually, the scriptures say be careful about gaming the year of Jubilee. Don't do that. If you know this is coming, you still have to take your risks, right? So debts are forgiven. Slaves are free. And the land gets a year to rest. No agriculture for a whole year. And actually, this is so funny because we understand that that's just good farming practice is to let the fields have a Sabbath themselves. In this case, every 50 years, right?

[12:20] So the Messiah is saying, tell those who mourn that the Jubilee is coming. So this is actually a time of restoration. It's a time of forgiveness. It's a time of rest from labor. And it's a time of sort of focusing on God, right? And with it, the day of God's anger against their enemies, right?

[12:47] And did you notice that Jesus didn't read that part? Did you catch that from the reading in Luke? Somehow that fell off the bottom. We're going to get to that. It's very interesting. Like, why did he stop there? Well, we'll get to that, okay?

[13:02] But it means something when something's missing. When something's missing, it means something. It doesn't mean nothing, right? Okay. But for Isaiah, the enemies were the people that oppressed the Israelites.

[13:17] But sort of in the New Testament, it would be the spiritual force. It's the spiritual forces that seek to stop God's work in every culture. And so when Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, he's doing battle with dark spiritual forces, and he continues to do so all throughout his ministry as he casts out demons. So Jesus nonetheless is fulfilling this, even though he doesn't read it in Luke chapter 4. I don't know if Jesus actually read it, but Luke left it off, or if Jesus left it off and Luke kept it that way. We don't know. But it's missing from the Scriptures. And that does mean something. Okay. So we can make that all probably go away. I want to talk about Luke chapter 4, 14, because this passage is sort of the symbolic beginning of Jesus' ministry. So you can think about this as almost like New Year's Day. Or, you know, if you join a team in the very first day of practice, the coach is like, okay, let's talk about all the things. You know, it's not just going to practice. Let's talk about all the things that are going to happen this year. Let's talk about who's going to be on what thing, you know, what part of the team. And let's talk about that. Let's talk about the schedule for when we have practices.

[14:21] So this is like the preliminary stuff is done, right? There's this preliminary stuff that Jesus is done with, and now he's beginning his ministry. And one thing that we've talked about a lot more lately, interestingly, is the Messianic secret. You guys remember the Messianic secret? The Messianic secret is when people notice that Jesus is pretty amazing, and he's like, don't tell anybody just yet because the time isn't right, right? You know, let's keep it on. Let's keep it on the QT. Well, the Messianic secret is kind of being lifted in this passage because Jesus is saying in front of everybody, that's me. You know, this person in Isaiah 61 that's saying this, that's me. That's me. That's very public. There's no Messianic secret anymore. It's actually a Messianic revelation now. It's a Messianic announcement, a pronouncement, right, or proclamation. So it was, and that's the thing. It was in the synagogue. And if we thought about it now, we'd think like, it's some dusty corner of a church where nobody is. Somebody says something, it doesn't mean anything, right, which is sadly true about the church in America. But in there, it was like that was the public square, that moment in the synagogue service.

[15:33] That's everybody was there. And if the people who weren't there were going to tell everybody who weren't, who wasn't there. Jesus saying, this is me. Isaiah 61, 1 and 2, that's me. That's me. That's very public, right? So.

[15:48] And he doesn't just read the scroll. He sits down and he starts to teach. So he's saying, I'm the Messiah and I'm the teacher. This is how it begins. So this is like the marching orders. This is the beginning of Jesus's ministry.

[16:03] And he could have picked a different prophetic verse from the Old Testament to say, this is me. But he chose this one. And I'll just tell you a few of the other things he could have said. He could have said, see. The Son of Man is coming on the clouds in glory and he's going to destroy all of his enemies. But he didn't say that. He didn't start his ministry by saying, I'm going to come and bring power and vengeance. I'm going to be flying. This is a really superman, like coming in the clouds. The Messiah isn't going to fly. The Messiah is going to sit and teach. The Messiah is going to talk about the poor.

[16:41] So Jesus's choice of Old Testament passages to announce that he's beginning his ministry is super important. Right. He doesn't say all glory, glory, glory. He says, no, I'm here for the poor. I'm here for the captive. I'm here for the brokenhearted. This is my ministry. This is how it all starts. Right.

[17:01] So and that brings and as I mentioned, that brings up a very interesting question is why does Jesus talk about the poor so much? Why does he talk about the poor so much? If you were to look at it and you know, everybody. Has our favorite lists of things that we think Jesus talks about the most, but he really actually talks about wealth and the dangers of wealth a lot more than he talks about many other things. That means we should pay attention to it. Okay. We're all I mean, I it's not lost on me that we're sitting in Los Altos, California right now. It's not lost on me. It's not lost on me that the house across the street from us is probably worth $4 million, which is obscene and absurd. As a child, I would have been like, what? You mean it's not like a castle? You know, no, it's just like a 1800 square foot house. Modest house by most measures. Right. We're wealthy. We're all wealthy. You know, even if you don't own a home in this area, you know, you're doing better than 99% of the world's population that has ever lived. You're living in more luxury than the kings of kings and queens of Europe did in the 1500s. Like they didn't have running water. They didn't have electricity. That's for sure. Right.

[18:15] We have a lot of things. But Jesus really cares about wealth and he cares about the poor. Okay. And he focuses on them. Now, there's one strand of Christian theology, I have to say this, it's called liberation theology. And it really tries to, it takes passages like this and say, God has sort of a preferential spot in his heart for poor people. And that, it's good to develop that theology. Some of that theology has developed to the point where some, not all liberation theologians will almost get to the point of saying, the poor aren't sinners.

[18:50] Do you see where, did you catch that? We're, we're, we're maybe losing the, we're losing track here. You know, the poor aren't sinner, only, only rich people are sinners. And then to that, I would always, I would just say, I love that you're focusing on the poor and the vulnerable, but the gospel as we understand it is that everybody is sinners. And I've met poor people. I used to be poor. I used to be a college student. You know, you know what it's like to be poor. I remember my very first paycheck. I, I, that I got as like making actual money. I was like, holy cow, that's a lot of money. And I went straight to Burger King and there I said, I want a Whopper. And they said, do you want cheese on that Whopper? And I was like, my, my default sort of frugalness was like 20 cents. That's, that's a lot of money. I'm not going to spend 20 cents on a piece of cheese. You know?

[19:40] So I would always say no to the cheese. But after that paycheck, I was like, yeah. Let's go. Let's put cheese on it. 20 cents. I think I have that now. You know? And after that, it was just a mess, right? It was just too much money going out the door. And so the poor can sin. Let, let's just not forget that. Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners of whom I am the worst. The poor sin, the rich sin, their sins might look different, but they're all sinners. They all need Jesus to save them. But Jesus does have a spot for the poor. We need to pay attention to this. Okay. And he, he has a spot for the vulnerable. He has a spot in his heart for the brokenhearted. But that doesn't mean that other places else in his, in his ministry, he doesn't attack people for hypocrisy or sexual sin. He does. Or, or, uh, you know, leading people astray or theft, right? And he definitely does battle with dark spiritual forces. So there is an enemy yet that Jesus cares about. So it's a bigger picture. It's not just a binary of he's only for the poor, but he's not for anyone else. No, he's for the poor, but he also says, I'm here for the poor. I'm here for the prostitutes. I'm here for the tax collectors. The well don't need a doctor, but the sick do I'm here for them.

[20:57] So in a, in a sense, he's really caring for people who have have challenges in the world. Okay. Um, so there's also, but there's another kind of poverty that is worth talking about. We will talk about again. I keep talking, I'm promising a lot. And you just, you have to come back. Um, we can be poor and wealth, but you can't. You can be poor in a spiritual sense. There's spiritual poverty. And this is one of the Beatitudes. Remember the Beatitudes blessed are the poor and spirits for this. There's is the kingdom of heaven. And, um, we're going to have a sermon series on what the kingdom of heaven is later this spring after the book study, but the poor in spirit is all of us. And it means that, you know, you're a sinner and you long for God to remove your defects. That's what it means to be poor in spirit. So there's actually a spiritual poverty that we all experience. And it's definitely that spiritual. Poverty that Jesus wants to bring restoration to. Okay. So I'm almost done. Believe it or not. We're going to do, we're going to have, uh, we're gonna have to eat lunch early. I hope the, is the lasagna ready. Is it in the oven? Okay. Working on. All right. So up until now, Luke is telling a story about Jesus, but it's really like as a preamble, right?

[22:05] You know, chapter two, how he's born, who he's descended from his baptism and his temptation, but that he's cleared all these hurdles. And now. Jesus has. Officially started his ministry in this very public way. Um, and he's telling us what he's going to do. He's going to redeem the lost and he's going to lift up the poor. Uh, but he leaves out the part about destroying the enemies of God, people of God's people. And that, and that's not because it's not in Isaiah because it is like he, if he had kept reading and maybe he did, but Luke left it out. We don't know. He would have said, I'm going to destroy the enemies. I'm going to destroy the enemies. Right. Let's see.

[22:41] But I think for Jesus. He doesn't want to destroy the. Enemy. Of the people living in Israel. In fact, what happens after this kind of tells us that he doesn't want to destroy anyone. He wants to destroy the forces of darkness and the, and he does right. Not just by showing up, but by going to the cross, the enemy is not flesh and blood as the apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 6, 12, memorize Ephesians 6, 12. Somehow, some way it's a very good one. Ephesians 6, 12. This is what the apostle Paul wrote. And you'll re you'll recognize this in your mind. You'll recognize this instantly. For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies. This is the new living translation, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world. He's not talking about actual evil rulers like people he's talking about spiritual dark forces, evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world against mighty powers in this dark world and against evil spirits in the heavenly places, which is kind of mind blowing. Because what are the evil spirits doing in the heavenly places? Why? Why is God tolerating them? Well, at some point, it's all going to get the house is going to get cleaned out. But Paul is saying our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against as you would hear in other translations of the Bible.

[23:57] Remember this, the principalities and the powers of this dark age, right? Of this present darkness. Yeah. So. Jesus does fight, but he fights and he goes out. He doesn't just heal people of regular sicknesses and being, you know, paralyzed, things like that. He casts out demons.

[24:17] The spirit, the battle is a spiritual battle as well. So now I want to conclude about how this story ends. If you were to keep on reading, everybody who heard that was like, that was great. Wow. Don't we? Wasn't he? Didn't he grow up here? Wasn't he in the nursery? That little kid. Now he's saying he's the Messiah. And most of them are like, that was pretty cool. And then Jesus, who can't leave well enough alone.

[24:43] Pretty good. I like that. Can't leave well enough. He's like, well, you say that, but as we all know, prophet really has no honor in his hometown. And by the way, the prophet Elijah had no honor in his own town. And so he went to the Gentiles. He went to a Gentile woman and raised her son from the dead. What do you think of that?

[25:07] And what did they think of that? They're like, we hate you now. Like five minutes ago, we loved you. Now they're like, we hate you. They grabbed him. They took him to a cliff. I've been to Nazareth. It's got a lot of, in fact, we got stuck in like going backwards down a hill with George in the car. It was insane. We rented a car and we went down this very narrow road and we're like, it's dead end. And it was really steep though, too. So we had to back up backwards up this giant hill with like people all around us, you know? And so I could easily imagine a cliff and they were going to grab Jesus and they were going to throw him off. They were going to throw him off the cliff. And I know what Jesus does is I don't know if it was parkour or I don't know, or is this like ninja skills? But he's like, wah, wah, wah. And he just, it says he just walked, walked away through their midst.

[25:58] Incarnation. Incarnation. A little bit of supernatural skills here. Because here's a whole crowd ready to throw him off. How do you walk through a crowd that's about to throw you off a cliff? But he does. So what did they object to?

[26:12] You're going to go help our enemies. We want you to destroy our enemies. Keep reading in Isaiah, please. Nope. I'm going to go love your enemies. I'm going to go help your enemies. How do you like that? How do you like them apples? They're like, we don't like those apples. We're going to, we don't like that, right?

[26:30] So the first reaction is that this is amazing. But after that, it's like, we don't, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to get rid of you because this is not good. So Jesus, this is the other aspect of the story of Jesus. Jesus' ministry and the kingdom. Do you notice the very first practically thing that happens after he announces what his ministry is? Opposition.

[26:54] So the story in the gospels, you could almost put it as a paradigm of Jesus says he's going to do things and he does things. And people are trying to stop him at every turn. Everybody, all the time, from every angle, all kinds of people. Gentiles, Jews, Pharisees, Sadducees. Even his own people. Even his own disciples try to stop him. So this is really a story about a goal that he has in mind. He's going to get to Jerusalem. And people trying to stop him all the time. And that's the kingdom. The kingdom is a place of conflict. The kingdom is a place where we need to follow Jesus and we will face opposition for it. Do you know what Jesus said to his disciples? In this world, you will have trouble.

[27:37] He meant it. He meant it. There will be trouble, right? So, but that's the thing. Isaiah 61, the end of verse 2. Jesus is different. The prophecy isn't quite exactly right. He destroys evil forces, but he will not destroy people who are opposed to him.

[27:57] He doesn't destroy people who are opposed to him. He weeps for them. He weeps over Jerusalem, right? His heart is broken for them. He holds out his hand to them for as long as it takes. He even prays for the people who are... crucifying him. Do you remember that? He doesn't call down angels to destroy them. He prays for God to forgive them, right? So, here are some quick questions that I find extremely convicting as we kind of... we're starting with Jesus' ministry. After our book study, we're going to talk about the kingdom and Jesus' work as he goes to this place of opposition. One question I want to ask you to ask yourselves. Are you seeing any opposition to your work in the kingdom?

[28:42] Because if I'm not... seeing opposition, does that mean I'm doing anything that counts? Do you see what I'm saying? If there's no conflict, if there's no opposition to what we're doing, we may not be doing what we're being called to do because it's a pretty sure bet that if we're doing what the kingdom calls us to, some people are not going to like it and some people are going to try to get in our way. Okay? So, are we not offending the right people? Could be a way of putting it. Now, when I was at the church in Iowa, and I won't say there... I used to say this. I used to say this person's name, but I won't say it anymore just because he would laugh, but he might listen.

[29:18] The superintendent of the Northwest Conference called me up and said, how's it going at the church? I said, pretty good. He said, how's the chairman doing? And I said, oh, he's good. It's just he's stepping on a few toes in the church.

[29:35] And the superintendent, I can say his name, Paul Carlson, Paul Wilson, no, Paul Erickson. Oh, yeah. Oh, dear Lord. I don't know. It's some Swedish name. It's some Swedish name. Yeah. My memory's not great. Paul said, I said, he's stepping on some toes. And Paul said, that's good. He knows which toes to step on.

[29:59] And I was like, oh, that's interesting. And that was kind of true. He knew which toes to step on. He knew who to kind of give a hard time to and who to comfort. You know, I think maybe Jesus is the same way. I'm here for the weak. The vulnerable. The poor. I need to bind them up. The hypocrites I'm going to really yell at, but these people I'm going to embrace. But I love them all. It's just I'm giving each of them what they actually need in this moment so that they can follow me. Right? So he knew which feet to step on. Do we know which feet to step on? Are we stepping on no feet?

[30:31] Are we stepping on the wrong feet? Are we stepping on the feet that we should be stepping on? Right? But all that to say, the other side of it is, are we holding out our hands even yet to those people who are opposed to the Lord? Or are we supporting the work of the kingdom? We need to stay connected even with people who are opposed to the kingdom. If they're opposed, that's good. It means we're doing our job. But it doesn't mean we write them off, put them in some other category that we won't ever talk to them, won't ever have anything to do with them. Our hand stays out because Jesus wants those people in the kingdom, too. In fact, they're closer to the kingdom than the apathetic by far. You can figure that out, right? They are much closer to the kingdom because they actually care about something that the kingdom is doing. The apathetic is very hard to reach. Right? But the oppositional we can bring in with just a little bit of work and love, okay? So are we writing them off and hoping they'll be destroyed like in the second half of Isaiah 61 verse 2? Or are we holding our hearts out to them? Is our heart breaking for them of all people? Are our heart breaking for the poor and the vulnerable? Is our heart breaking for the oppressor?

[31:33] All of them belong into God's kingdom. And those are the convicting questions that I get from this passage. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word for this, wow, spirit-led and powerful inauguration. Speaking of inaugurations, this is the inauguration of Jesus' ministry and how he starts it. Lord, remind us how he starts it. Remind us what he cares about.

[31:58] And Father, bring us out of captivity to these dark forces and make us your children who do your word and do your will. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.