Episode 1512: In Your Hometown

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1512 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:06] Tony Hixon: I'm Tony Hixon. I've challenged you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, Your talent and your treasures to live out your calling, having the ability to develop a true retirement plan that defines your dreams is key.

[00:00:26] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer,

[00:00:42] Scott Maderer: except can we be the exception to this hate field world? None of them except. Who goes in that blank after accept? Who goes before Jesus [00:01:00] goes on his way and leaves us to it. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling.

[00:01:19] In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:37] In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I talk about Luke chapter 4, verses 21 through 30. I share how Jesus was both welcome and unwelcome in his hometown, and I talk about how Jesus calls us not just to love those like us, but even those we see as other, and what that really means. Luke [00:02:00] chapter 4 verses 21 through 30 says, Then he began to say to them, Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

[00:02:08] All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, Is this not Joseph's son? And he said to them, Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, Doctor, cure yourself. And you will say, Do you hear also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum?

[00:02:26] And he said, Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land. Yet, Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zafa and SiteOne.

[00:02:47] There were also many with the skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naiman. The Syrian, when they heard this, all in the synagogue, were [00:03:00] filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.

[00:03:08] But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. You know, last week I, I talked about Jesus in the synagogue, teaching, reading the scroll and doing his little nine word sermon and everything was going so well. I know that's not the way you remember the story. We always talk about how Jesus was rejected.

[00:03:31] And this passage is about that in a way, but it's kind of not too. I mean, didn't they say he was a hometown boy just getting too big for his parents? Bridges. But if you look at the passage, that's not actually where it starts. That's, that's not the beginning. It says, all spoke well of him. They thought, wow, a hometown boy made good.

[00:03:52] He's one of us. He's ours. Aren't we special? Aren't we cool? At the end of verse 22, [00:04:00] where it says all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came out from his mouth, and then they said, is this not Joseph's son? They don't mean that with disparagement. It sounds more like pride. He's one of us.

[00:04:15] He's like us. And if Jesus had stopped there, It probably would have stopped there. It would have been a, a glorious homecoming. They would have slapped him on the back, invited him to dinner, talked about the good old days when he was a boy, and how things were so much better back in the Nazareth that used to be.

[00:04:34] That time long ago, once upon a time when everything was perfect. Jesus would have been a minor celebrity. They would have waved to him in the Walgreens parking lot and want to sit beside him at the high school basketball games. He probably could have done pretty well back there in that little town. But Jesus didn't stop talking.

[00:04:57] He had a bigger vision than one small town in [00:05:00] the hill country of Galilee. So he says, I, I, I know you want me to settle down here. After all, this is where all of the people that matter are. I know you don't understand why anyone would want to leave Nazareth and go out to other towns and other countries, but you don't need me here.

[00:05:20] You won't really hear me here. That's what he says. No prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. That's translated different ways in different translations of the Bible. But basically the, the capture is he knows what's underneath their approval. And he knew that they really didn't want to hear what he'd actually come to say.

[00:05:46] Yes, he did come to say that they were important and they heard that part. I think all of us can hear that part It's really easy to hear. We're special. We're important. We're set apart. We're somehow special in God's eye [00:06:00] God is going to get the kingdom going right here in Nazareth And that'll show everybody down the road in the next county in the next country.

[00:06:09] I mean, this is where God is. God lives here. God is kicking things off here. We're special. Today, the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Yeah. After all, he's coming to say that we're important. But then Jesus goes on and says, yeah, but you're not the only important ones in the world. You're not the only ones that matter.

[00:06:38] You're not really set apart in the eyes of God. He came to say that God thinks even the stranger, even the foreigner, even the enemy, even that person that you hate is important. Important enough to save, important enough to love. And wouldn't the world be a better place if we really [00:07:00] believe that? If other was an enemy?

[00:07:05] This has been what God has been planning from the beginning, Jesus is saying. You remember Elijah? You remember that story of the widow? God thought she was important. He saved her. He blessed her. He loved her. And she wasn't one of us. You remember Elisha? That guy that the foreign general with the skin problem came to him?

[00:07:25] That guy was an enemy. He was a conqueror of people like you. And yet God healed him. God blessed him. God loved him. And he was a Syrian. Wait a minute. They might have said Syrian, a refugee, an immigrant from Syria. Immigrants, they, they hurt us. They, they might hate us. They're not like us. They're different.

[00:07:49] They, they take our stuff. They steal our jobs. They run our country into the ground. Yeah, maybe they tell you that they're running for their life, but you know, this is just a plot [00:08:00] to catch us with our guard down. He's not really sick. They aren't really refugees. They haven't really lived their whole lives in fear for their lives, surrounded by war and killing, and living in an unjust system that doesn't value them as human beings, but rather as pawns at a game of power.

[00:08:20] We should always protect ourselves first. Think of ourselves first. Put ourselves first. in the driver's seat. How dare you, Jesus, tell us to love even those who are different from us? Heck, I don't know about you, but sometimes I struggle to love the other people in the pew. And you want us to love across boundaries?

[00:08:44] But these boundaries are here to keep us safe. Is it really any wonder that the people there in Nazareth got angry? I mean, don't we get angry when we hear that same message? They turned from a people [00:09:00] praising him to a mob. And could you really blame them? I mean, Jesus is putting them out something awful.

[00:09:08] He's asking them to make accommodations, to change their habits, to think differently about who and what a neighbor really is. And I mean, that's crazy talk in modern parlance. That's woke, that's liberal. So they drove him out of town. They wanted to toss him off a cliff, but instead he just leaves. He had places to go, a word to proclaim, a world to save, and he went on his way.

[00:09:38] And that is perhaps the saddest verse in the whole Bible. It's evidence that God doesn't force us to change, to grow, to love as Jesus loves. God doesn't force us. He doesn't demand that we change, that we become something more, something riskier Something with the real potential to [00:10:00] change the world for the better.

[00:10:02] To bring the world more to be like what it was meant to be from the beginning. When God created the heavens and the earth and said it was good. It was good. Notice, by the way, he didn't say it was perfect. He said it was good. We have a part in making it more than good. It's not on God alone. We're part of that creation.

[00:10:24] We co create with God, but Jesus isn't hanging around. He says, follow me. And then he goes on his way and he leaves them all. And I don't know about you, but I think I'm tempted to think, well, yeah, he left them all, but he didn't leave me. I mean, I don't want to hurl Jesus off a cliff. We're not hurling Jesus.

[00:10:46] We're hurling. Others, those unlike us, the enemy, the bad seed, the person that's bringing our country down, or the outsider. We're bringing those that are bringing harm to us. [00:11:00] We'll just hurt those that want to hurt us. We'll toss them aside. We'll shout them down. They don't agree with us if they don't look like us, if they don't act like us.

[00:11:09] Well, now we're angry. We'll shout them down. And we're doing the right thing. We're protecting ourselves. Those are the ones we'll bring to the edge and throw off the clip. Or maybe, maybe right before we throw them, if we're lucky, our eyes will open enough to see instead the face of Jesus, bloodied by our hatred.

[00:11:33] And we'll stop ourselves and maybe we'll try it a different way. We'll try it His way. When we see the pain in His eyes and hear those words, are there none who will not hate? And we respond, none of them, except, can we be the exception to this hate field world? None of them, [00:12:00] except, who goes in that blank after except?

[00:12:05] Who goes before Jesus goes on his way and leaves us to it? Thanks for listening.

[00:12:19] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, go over to facebook. com slash inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market.

[00:12:48] That you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and [00:13:00] tips there. Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.