August 5, 2025; Luke 4:1-30

Daily Dose of Hope

August 5, 2025

 

Scripture – Luke 4:1-30

 

Prayer: 

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil,
for thine is the kingdom,
and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.

 

Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements the New Hope daily Bible reading plan.  We are currently doing a deep dive into the Gospels and Acts.  Today, we begin Luke 4.

 

The chapter starts with Jesus being led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit.  There, he was tempted by Satan for forty days.  Luke goes into a fair amount of detail here.  The devil tempts a fasting Jesus by telling him to turn rocks into bread.  The devil promises Jesus that he will offer him the whole earth if he will just bow down and worship Satan, but Jesus refuses.  He also encourages Jesus to put God to the test.  Just like the baptism, this is part of Jesus’ preparation for public ministry. 

 

Remember, Jesus was both fully God and fully human.  There is mystery here; with our human brains, we struggle to wrap our brains around this truth.  I certainly do.  It’s in the wilderness experience that we can see Jesus’ humanity.  He is truly tempted.  But he stays in line with God’s will.  In his baptism, he has made a public declaration that he will obey God’s will for his life.  And he stays true to that, even when tempted by the devil and his schemes. 

 

I grew up in Christian traditions in which we didn’t talk much about the devil.  I think people were kind of scared to talk about it.  In my previous denomination, there was definitely a wishy washiness about belief in Satan and demons.  If you didn’t believe in a real devil, they were fine with it.  While they could not deny evil, which is a force that is obviously very strong, they were definitely hesitant to make firm statements about the source of that force.

 

After almost twenty years in ministry, I don’t see how anyone who reads Scripture and lives out the Christian walk can deny the existence of a real Satan.  God has an enemy who is at work against him and against us.  References to Satan/the devil/the enemy are found throughout the entire Biblical narrative.  At least a quarter of Jesus’ ministry dealt specifically with the conflict between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of darkness.  We are going to see all of this play our as we walk through the gospels.  Jesus was God with flesh on and he came to crush Satan under his feet. What Jesus experienced in the wilderness was spiritual warfare and as we look at this narrative in other gospels, we will see how Jesus uses Scripture, God’s Word, in response to everything the devil threw at him.  He emerges from the wilderness victorious and ready to start preaching and teaching God’s message of redemption, reconciliation, and love. 

 

Jesus also gives us a great example of how to stand up against the enemy’s tactics in our world.  We don’t need to be scared but be prepared.  There isn’t a demon lurking in every corner, but the world is full of evil and evil beings.  Be ready to proclaim God’s Word, that is the only offensive weapon we have.  Keep following Jesus, stay faithful, but be prepared for opposition. 

 

The next part of the passage moves into Jesus standing on the steps of the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth.  Let’s start with some background to help us understand the significance of this moment.  Our God is a God of mission. His mission from the beginning was to redeem his world and restore it to its intended purpose. We see throughout scripture how God’s plan unfolds. First, he pours himself into the nation of Israel, revealing his character, shaping a new kind of people. But, if you’ve read the Old Testament, you know what happens. Israel repeatedly disobeys God and eventually rebels against God until there is no turning back.  At this point, it seems like all is lost. 

 

But at just the right time, God speaks through the prophets and the next part of his mission begins to unfold. He says, “It may seem like things are hopeless now but they aren’t because someday, I’m going to send someone who will restore the people of Israel to me. This person will be a light to the Gentiles, and will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth and it will be obvious once more that your God reigns.” And then 600 years after that prophecy in Isaiah, once again in God’s perfect timing, his mission becomes more full and complete through the person of Jesus Christ who fulfilled this promise of reconciliation and “making things right again.”

 

 That’s where we are pick up in the scripture passage for today.  It’s early in Jesus’ ministry and he begins to reveal his mission.  Jesus reads scripture from the prophet Isaiah, scripture that those present would have been quite familiar with.  But Jesus does something extraordinary after that.  He says, The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day.  

 

Jesus is saying, “Guess what, guys? I am the long-expected redeemer. I am the one who came to fulfill the mission of God. To put things right, GOD SENT ME!” This would have caused a bit of shock.  But Jesus doesn’t stop there.  He begins to tell them how the Jews have traditionally rejected the prophets.  They haven’t recognized God’s sent people, even when face to face.  Here they are, face to face, with the Son of God, the Messiah himself, and they don’t recognize him at all. 

 

But this only angers them and it seems that they may even try to throw Jesus off the cliff.  But Jesus walks right through the crowd, totally unscathed.

 

I like to think of this text as Jesus’ mission declaration.  But what exactly did God send Jesus to do?  What was his mission?  This is the critical question for us.  In American Christianity, when we think about why Jesus was sent, we tend to say “to die on the cross so we can have eternal life.” That is certainly part of the reason (and it’s really, really important but it’s incomplete. It’s not the whole story.)

 

In tomorrow’s reading, we will hear Jesus say, I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent. Jesus was sent to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God.  And just a review, what is the Kingdom of God?  The Kingdom of God is anywhere that God reigns and his values are at work, anywhere where the world is working in the way that God always intended it to work. This means the Kingdom of God is present when values like justice, mercy, forgiveness, hope for the poor and oppressed, compassion, righteousness, are lived out by God’s people.

 

What we need to understand is how radical and revolutionary this was at the time.  Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of God had arrived. He represented the Kingdom. He represented this new way of doing life, this new way of being human, a way of doing life that demonstrates the reign of God. And everything Jesus did–all his miracles, all his parables---were intended to demonstrate the Kingdom. 

 

More tomorrow.

 

Blessings,

Pastor Vicki