Sermon Tone Analysis

Who Is Jesus to You?

Isaiah 61:1-3

Sermon by Rick Crandall

Grayson Baptist Church - Aug. 25, 2013

*Who is Jesus Christ?

-- This is one of the most important questions we ever have to answer in life.

*Some people would say that Jesus is a mythological person on the same level as Zeus and Hercules.

That's what I believed when I was a young man.

Many people would say that Jesus was a prophet.

And most would say that He was a good man.

*But the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is: The Almighty, the Alpha and Omega, the Author of Life, the Author of Salvation, the Beginning and the End, the Bread of Life, the Creator of all, Emmanuel -- God with us, Faithful and True, Firstborn from the Dead, the Good Shepherd who gave His life for His sheep, the great "I Am", the Judge of the living and the dead, King Eternal, the Lamb of God, the Light of the World, Lord of All, our Protection, Redemption and Righteousness, the Resurrection and the Life, our Rock, our Savior, the Son of God, the Way, the Truth and the Life!

*Jesus is all of these things, and more!

But who is Jesus Christ to you?

This is an even more important question: Who is Jesus to you?

*Today's Scripture helps us see who Jesus wants to be to you.

This Old Testament prophecy was written 700 years before Christ was born, but it certainly applies to Jesus.

*In Luke 4, Jesus went back to His hometown of Nazareth.

He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath Day, and was asked to read God's Word.

At that time Jesus turned to this very passage in Isaiah and read:

1. "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

2. To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn,

3. To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified."

*Then the Lord sat down to show His authority.

In Jewish tradition the one who sat was in charge.

That's where we get our word "chairman."

(1)

*Jesus sat down after reading these verses, and said: "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

(Luke 4:21)

*The townspeople understood that Jesus was claiming to be the prophesied Messiah and promised King.

But they would not accept this local man as their Messiah.

And in fact, they became so enraged that they tried to throw the Lord off a cliff.

*Of course they could not kill Jesus, because it was always God's plan for His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins.

They also could not kill Jesus, because He IS the Messiah, Savior, Almighty God, and Lord of all.

But this prophecy in Isaiah tells us much more about the Lord.

1. Who is Jesus to you? -- He wants to be your Preacher.

*And if we have trusted in the Lord, then Jesus is our Preacher.

There are a lot of wonderful preachers in this world, but none of them can hold a candle to Jesus!

*In vs. 1, Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor. .

."

That phrase "preach good tidings" is one word in the original language.

It means "to bring good news," and the word picture is something fresh and full, overflowing with goodness.

*Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor."

Now the Lord surely loves poor people, but He isn't talking about financial poverty here.

He's talking about someone who realizes his own spiritual poverty.

*It's the same thing Jesus had in mind in Matthew 5:3, when He said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus is talking about people who have realized that they have no righteousness on their own.

But they are happy, because they have trusted in the Lord.

*In vs. 1, the Lord also said: "He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound."

Then in vs. 2 the Lord said: "He has sent me to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God. .

."

*Notice that word "proclaim" in those two verses.

It means "to cry out with a loud sound."

That word reminds us that we've got news so big and so important that it deserves to be shouted from the rooftop!

*But we must not skip over the sobering news in vs. 2: "The day of God's vengeance."

Jesus also came to proclaim "the day of God's vengeance."

God is surely going to take vengeance on His enemies.

That includes everyone who refuses to receive Jesus as Lord.

But if we have put our trust in Jesus, we can be sure that He will destroy our greatest enemies: Satan, sin and death.

*Jesus came to set His people free!

And this takes us back to the good news in vs. 1, where Jesus said, "He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound."

*Here God is not primarily talking about prisons made with concrete and steel, though many Christians around the world are locked up in prisons like that right now.

They are suffering in places like China and Iran, and one day they will be free!

*But here God is mainly talking about the prisoners who are trapped by their own sin.

They are trapped under a sentence of eternal death.

But Jesus said: "He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound."

And the wonderful truth is that through Christ we can still be free even in the worst prison.

*During World War II, Christian author Corrie ten Boom and her family were arrested by the Nazis for protecting Jews.

Corrie and her sister we sent to the Ravensbrück prison camp north of Berlin.

Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system.

Only 40,000 survived.

*Listen to part of Corrie's testimony: "Far away from my home in Holland, my sister Betsy and I were now to be within the shadow of a crematory.

Every day about 600 bodies were burned (alive in that crematory).

*When I saw the smoke go up in the air I asked myself, 'When will it be my time to die?' I did not know before hand that I should be set free by a miracle from God. (It came in the form of a blunder by a prison official just) one week before the Germans killed all the women of my age.

*I have looked death in the eye not once, but several times.

What a joy it was that Jesus was with me and that I knew that He had died on a cross for all the sins of the whole world and for my sins as well.

I was not afraid!

I knew that when they killed me I would go to the Father in heaven."

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*Corrie ten Boom was trapped in one of history's worst prisons.

But she was already free because she trusted in the good news of the cross!

She trusted in the message of the world's greatest preacher.

-Jesus wants to be your Preacher too.

2.

He also wants to be your Healer.

*In Isaiah 61:1, the Lord said, "He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted."

It's the word picture of binding up our wounds.

People need healing.

We need healing!

And the only true healing comes from the Lord.

*Here's what the Apostle Peter said, when he was preaching about Jesus in Acts 10:36-38

36.

"The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ He is Lord of all

37. that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached:

38.

how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and HEALING all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him."

[1] Jesus went around "doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil."

Certainly that includes physical healing.

*We thank God for our health-care professionals.

They are a gift from God, and they help people every day.

But ultimately, all physical healing comes from God.

[2] Jesus is our physical healer, and our emotional healer.

*As He said in vs. 1, "He (i.e. the Father) has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted."

And nobody can heal a broken heart like Jesus Christ.

[3] Jesus is our physical healer, our emotional healer, and our spiritual healer.

*1 Peter 2:24 talks about those who have been spiritually healed by trusting in the Lord: "Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness by whose stripes you were healed."

-Jesus is our Healer!

He gives physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.