Inside Out, or Outside In?

Edited by Steve Fountain from a sermon on January 27, 2013 called, "On the Inside, Out or On the Outside, In." Luke 4:15-30.

Can you actually think you are inside and actually be outside the family of God? 

As we continue in Luke 4, we find Jesus has been invited to speak at the synagogue to the inside crowd — people he had attended synagogue with every Sabbath for all his life.  He knew these people.

With the Spirit, he knew them even more than they realized. 

After the normal recitation of the Shema, the prayers, and reading from both the Law and Prophets, Jesus was invited to give the instruction. 

Turning the scroll, he arrives at what we would know as Isaiah 61, verses 1-2.  Yet, Jesus only reads part of what we would call, verse 2.  There is also an insertion of a line from chapter 58, in the flow of this text (the last line of Luke 4:18). 

This leads us to believe that Jesus didn't just read the verses, and made the famous statement “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” and then sat down.  It is more likely he had a short homily that fused the theme of Isaiah 58 with that of 61.

Isaiah 58 rebukes Israel for not exhibiting justice toward those in their nation who were in need.  In that chapter, God uses fasting as an example of Israel’s lack of mercy to those in need.  Quite frankly, Israel was not listening to the voice of God through his word to show mercy.

And since Israel was not willing to be merciful, God was going to send his Servant, to proclaim liberty in Isaiah 61, and usher in a new age.  And so as Jesus’ audience considers Isaiah 61, they are overcome with the graciousness of the words Jesus is speaking. 

At this point, jaws were beginning to drop.  Were they actually hearing Jesus right?  This prophecy was a vision of the types of things God’s chosen servant would be saying and doing.  Could it be?  Is the son of Joseph, the Anointed One? 

In verse 22 we read, “And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.”  And then the wheels fall off.  They are listening and then they stop, because what they see, does not match what they hear, and so they stop listening.  They look at Jesus and they see Joseph’s son. 

And Jesus perceives their refusal to listen to the Word of God and believe so, Jesus changes his tact — he outs them.

In verse 23 we read that they will say something similar to this “What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.”  The jealousy is exacerbated because they begin to hear, but still have not the ears to believe. 

Jesus tells them it is because of their lack of faith.  As they will begin to recognize that they are no longer insiders for their jealously will expose them.  If they do not have faith, it is because they are not listening, and if they are not listening, their ears have been seared shut.  And the people who think they are on the inside are exposed for who they really are — people without faith — without a believing heart.   

And the result of what they hear only serves to demonstrate what is in their hearts.  Those who thought they were inside are actually outside.

You don’t want to ever be in a position where you start aborting what you know is truth.  At the moment you begin to close your ears, you run the risk of an unbelieving heart.

Those who are on the outside will reap the blessings of grace, even if those who are on the inside close their ears.  Yet those who recognize that they are not on the inside as they once thought, rather on the outside, are those who are listening with ears of faith, and will to their delight discover they are no longer on the outside, they are in fact, on the inside.