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This week we are looking at Luke 4: 16-21.  Today we see Jesus preached his first sermon in the gospel. This is an interesting thing to me as a preacher. One of the most important, and most difficult sermons that are preacher will preach is their first term. I know that for me preach to the church that I’ve moved to I’ll spend months working on my first sermon. My first sermon is usually a sermon I preach entitled this I believe, and it lays out to me what are the core things that I believe is a preacher and as a Christian. This is Jesus’ first message to the people, especially these people in his hometown. 

So what does he choose to do in his first sermon? It’s interesting to me what he does, he shows us a path for what the Christian life should look like, it is not a path of power and fame or wealth or privilege, but it is a path of noticing the worth of all persons that we meet. In this message, he lifts up the poor, the captive, the blond, the oppressed, he tells us that they will receive good news. In many ways is the target audience.  It’s not even the folks in the synagogue, that is the target audience for the folks outside the doors. And his message is a call to those inside the doors to go outside the doors and take God’s favor with them. That’s quite a first sermon.

But as a preacher, I can tell you that the first sermon really charts the course for what you want your ministry to look like. Jesus is telling us the very first moment who matters.  Jesus is calling us to pay attention to the folks that others may ignore because he is coming to die to Save not just those that we all noticed, but he’s going to save all the world, whosoever would believe. And for us today that’s our mission field. Whosoever.

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