Luke 4.20-31

Epiphany 4

Hymns: 281, 83, 86, 356

Let’s review a few things about our relationship with God, yours and mine. First, we are alive. We didn’t choose to be a-live; God and no other gave us the precious gift of life. He didn’t owe that to us. We didn’t exist until he brought us into existence. Nor does he owe anything else to us. He doesn’t owe it to us to take care of us every day, to protect us every day, to get us through difficult times, to make us happy or keep us healthy. Nor does God owe it to us to give us a happy life after we die. As sinful beings we have no claim on God for anything, not for anything in this life on earth and certainly no claim to be with him after this life in heaven. Sin separates us from God; our sin requires that our holy God condemn us forever in the place where sinners belong ...in hell, together with Satan the architect of sin.

Second , we were born of sinful parents. We inherited their genes, we resemble them physically, we share some of their gifts and abilities and we inherited their sinful nature. If your parents were Christians when you were born (mine were not), you did not inherit their faith in Jesus but you did inherit their need for a Savior. We are born sinners, we didn’t become sinners as we grew older.

Third, God loves us...he loves the world, all people. We know this because he tells us so in the Bible. He loves us; I don’t know why, do you? He does love us. Because of his mercy; be-cause he wants us to share heaven with him he loves us so much that he gave his own Son, Jesus, to pay for our sins by dying on a cross. And God asks absolutely nothing of us in any way, shape or form in order to be forgiven of sin and share heaven with him. Simply believe that Jesus is God’s Son, your Savior and you are forgiven and have eternal life.

You know these things. Do you also know the greatest danger you and I face as Christians? It’s spiritual apathy or what we might refer to as GOD-OWES-IT-TO-ME-ITIS!

What is GOD-OWES-IT-TO-ME-ITIS? It sounds like a disease, and it is. It’s the disease of spiritual apathy, of taking God’s love and forgiveness for granted. It’s having the idea that God takes care of us and provides for us and loves us and will take us to heaven because he owes that to us, we deserve that from him, when just the opposite is true.

The Jews where Jesus grew up, Nazareth, had GOD-OWES-IT-TO-ME-ITIS. Here’s the situation: Jesus had begun his public ministry when he was 30 years old and was telling people that he was not only Mary’s son but God’s Son...the Messiah whom God promised he would send to save the world from sin and damnation. Jesus’ friends and neighbors who had known him for 30 years, who watched him grow up and mature were dumb-founded and incredulous. One Saturday he led temple worship and read from the prophet Isaiah (61.1,2). After reading that he told the worshipers that he had spoken those words 600 years earlier, that he is the one who had come to free the world from the poverty and slavery of sin, to give faith to the spiritually blind and salvation to everyone who believes.

The worshipers in that temple didn’t believe Jesus. "Prove it to us that you are the Messiah," they demanded. "We don’t need to be saved from anything. We are descendants of Abraham. God will take us to heaven because we are Jews; we live by the laws of God and God owes heaven to us." They had GOD-OWES-IT-TO-ME-ITIS," although they didn’t call it that. They wanted Jesus to prove he was the Messiah by doing miracle for them as he had done in the city of Capernaum.

This is key to understanding what they were saying. In Caper-naum Jesus had healed the servant of a Roman soldier...non-Jews. Their demand was this: "You healed Gentiles in Caperna-um. You owe it to us, fellow Jews, to do miracles here in Naz-areth. Then we’ll listen to your claim to be the Messiah." They had GOD-OWES-IT-TO-ME-ITIS. They didn’t need to repent of their sins and ask for forgiveness. God owed that to them.

Then Jesus told them something that made them very angry

(read vs 23-30). This was a lesson out of the pages of the Old Testament that involved their Jewish ancestors. During the time of the prophet Elijah there was a famine that lasted 3 years. Eli-jah condemned the Jews for their unbelief. They had been wors-hiping the pagan god Baal and not the God of Israel, the God who promised to send a Messiah. Because of their unbelief God sent Elijah to help, not the Jews but a Gentile woman from the city of Zarephath. God performed a miracle through Elijah and supplied this pagan woman with oil and food that lasted through the duration of the famine. Elijah performed a miracle for a pag-an woman but not for the Jews because they refused to repent of their unbelief; God withheld his blessing from them.

A similar thing happened during the time of the prophet Elisha. Because of the unbelief of his fellow Jews Elisha did not heal any of them but he did heal a Gentile...Naaman. God showed mercy to a pagan through the miracle for which he was thank-ful but withheld miracles from the Jews because of they had turned their backs on God in unbelief...exactly what the Jews of Nazareth were doing to Jesus. They did not repent; they did not believe they needed a Messiah to pay for and forgive them of their sins. They had the spiritual disease GOD-OWES-IT-TO-ME-ITIS. They were angry because Jesus was telling them that just as their Jewish ancestors did not receive miracles because of their unbelief, so he would not do miracles for them because of their unbelief, their GOD-OWES-IT-TO-ME-ITIS.

You are a Christian...you attend worship...your bring your offer-ings...you say your prayers...you are a good person...you know where your Bible is and you could read it every day if you wanted to but don’t have the time...you try your best to what God wants you to do. And what you get for it? Nothing! You need a miracle from God and it’s not happening. You need a lit-tle consideration from God, you need things to go better in your life...less stress and irritation, a better mental outlook, some-thing positive as you see other people have who are less deserv-ing than you are! Why is it that people can be dishonest, selfish, immoral, uncaring and all kinds of great things are happening to them! That’s classic GOD-OWES-IT-TO-ME-ITIS!

You and I have the peace of Christ...his love and his forgive-ness. You and I have the certain knowledge that eternal life is our, not because God owes it to us but because God freely gives it to us because Jesus took away our guilt of sin, freed us from the debt of sin and made us holy and righteous and forgiven. And he who gives us heaven also gives us what we need, even struggles in life, to draw us to himself in repentance and faith for his forgiveness.

God owes us nothing but gives us everything. There’s no room for GOD-OWES-IT-TO-ME-ITIS in the heart of the Christian... in your heart and mine. There’s only room for, "Thank you dear Jesus for your undeserved love and forgiveness and salvation. Keep me close to you as I daily dig into your Word to keep my faith strong and my thankful heart trusting in you for giving me your life and your love and all that I need to survive this life and to be carried to heaven some day to be with your forever."